


Fallen Queen

by JCapasso



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:14:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 32,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23311456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: About four thousand hell years after he arrived, Lucifer was startled by a new throne growing up from the ground beside him and a fireball streaking through the sky.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 107
Kudos: 270





	1. Chapter 1

Lucifer had long lost track of the time he’d been in Hell. For a long time, he’d had Beatrice’s prayers as a beacon of time. She had prayed to him every day of her long life, so every month for him, but that had long since stopped, leaving him nothing to track the time with. He sat on his throne, overlooking his kingdom as he so often did, still missing his life as he always would. Amenadiel, Linda, Charlie, Ella, Beatrice, even Daniel, but most of all, he missed Chloe. His dear detective. The one person who had been able to look past the devil and love him anyway. The one person who had somehow managed to burrow past all of his walls and insecurities and teach him how to love. 

He was startled from his thoughts as the ground rumbled. He gripped the sides of his throne, trying not to be thrown out of it, and being ready with his wings in case he was. It took a moment before he could see something rising from the ground to meet it, and another moment before he could see that it was another throne and confusion hit him even harder. Before he could think too much on what it meant, his attention was drawn by a fireball streaking through the sky. He didn’t even notice Maze teleporting up to stand next to him. She was usually only by his side when he was downstairs. “Lucifer, what…” she asked confused. 

“I don’t know,” he said absentmindedly, watching the falling blur and finally realizing that it was headed for the fire pools. “Maybe another of my brothers or sisters fell?” he guessed before it dawned on him that whoever it was would likely need help, so he unfurled his wings and took to the sky. 

Chloe had known this was going to hurt, but she hadn’t fully been prepared for just how much. The falling was bad enough. She was falling so fast that the air was beating against her body, stealing the breath from her lungs, and made her feeling like she was being crushed to death. The friction of the air moving over her made her feel like she was burning alive at the same time. And then she felt the crash and the worse burning started. Pain became her entire world. Her brain could barely even process the reason she was doing all this in the first place. It was just a tiny whisper of his name at the back of her consciousness, and she held onto it as tightly as she could because that was the only way should would survive this. 

She had no idea how long she had been burning when she felt something against her skin. The added pressure was excruciating, but the burning dimmed in those areas where she felt what she soon figured out were arms, so it was both good and bad. As she felt the worst of the burning recede, she managed to croak out the one word, the one name, that she had been holding onto so tightly. “Lucifer.” 

Lucifer arrived at the magma pools about half a second before Maze got there, and just in time to see the disturbance of the magma where something, or more like someone, was sinking into it. He sighed. Of course they couldn’t be close to the edge. He sighed and quickly stripped off his clothes. This was going to hurt, but he didn’t see much choice. He waded as quickly as he could into the molten rock, trying to ignore his own burning, knowing that it would be so much worse for whoever had fallen. “Lucifer, wait. Let me,” Maze called as he took his first steps into it. 

“I’m fine,” he called back to her, gritting his teeth against the pain, and ignoring her huff of irritation. Maze had done this once before. She had been the one to wade in here and get him out when he’d first arrived. It was his turn now. He grabbed around for a moment before he found the body and quickly grabbed it and started dragging it out. Once he had it laying on the not quite as hot ground to see what could be done before moving it further, he heard his name fall from the charred lips and he gasped. “Ch-Chloe,” he whispered despairingly. He would know that voice anywhere, even as ragged as it was. He couldn’t recognize the body as badly burned as it was, but he could feel her soul and he would recognize that anywhere too. “No, no, no.” 

Maze gasped and felt the long foreign tears welling up in her eyes at the sight of who was once considered one of her best friends. “Lucifer, how…” 

Lucifer didn’t answer her. He just picked up the charred body and flew as fast as he could for his rooms, leaving Maze to follow. He set her on the bed, and grabbed a rag of warm water to start cleaning her up as best he could. Maze came in about five minutes later with a jar of what seemed like ointment. “What is that?” he asked. 

“You probably wouldn’t remember, but when you first arrived, we kept putting this on you to help you heal faster,” Maze told him. They hadn’t known who he was then, but the throne that arrived just before him had told them that he was to be their king and so they did what they could to take care of him, as few of them as there had been back then. Maze had barely been more than a child when it happened, but that day was seared into her memory for all eternity. 

As she stepped over and opened the jar, Lucifer took it from her hands and gave it a sniff before wrinkling his nose at the smell. “And you’re certain this will help her?” 

“It doesn’t do much for the pain, but it will speed her healing. I’m positive,” she told him. Lucifer nodded, trusting Maze more than most anyone and reached in to grab a glob of it, starting with her face. When Maze reached for the jar, Lucifer pulled it away with a glare. “It’ll go faster if we both help,” Maze reasoned and Lucifer relaxed slightly and allowed her to grab some too, so Maze started on the other side of her face. While they were working, Maze explained what had taken so long. “The demons are rather unsettled at the moment, but I set Azazel and Abbadon to keeping order for now and told them one of us would address them soon.”

Lucifer nodded absentmindedly, beyond caring about anything at the moment beyond the woman in the bed. Maze knew that, but also knew that he needed to know what was going on outside. It didn’t take long for her entire body to be coated in the ointment, and Maze forced him to use some on his arms and legs that had been so badly burned getting her out. Once that was done, Lucifer sat back, at a loss now of what to do. The pitiful moans and cries that came from her as they were spreading the ointment, and were still coming from her were tearing him apart, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. Maze gave him a few minutes before she prompted him. “You should go at least tell everyone that everything is fine.” 

“Fine?!” Lucifer snapped incredulously. “Does this look fine to you?!”

“No, she doesn’t. But Hell is. They are panicking thinking that we are all about to be destroyed or something. You need to keep order. It does none of us any good, especially her, if there is a full scale riot out there. Azazel and Abbadon can only do so much,” Maze told him. 

“I can’t…” he reached out to her before pulling his arm back, knowing that his touch would only hurt her more. 

“You have to, Lucifer,” Maze said firmly. “I’ll stay with her. I won’t leave her side. You have my word. And it won’t take long. But you need to go.” Lucifer growled low in his throat before getting up and storming towards the door, his demonic form taking hold mid-stride and Maze couldn’t help but wince. They would calm down, but they would not be happy that they had forced their king from these rooms right now. 

Lucifer shoved the double doors open to the street to see the demons scurrying around in a panic like ants and she shouted, “ENOUGH!” They all stopped dead in their tracks and immediately knelt before him. “We are NOT under attack. There is nothing for you to be concerned with right now. Go about your days as normal.” 

“But the new throne…” one of the more suicidal demons asked fearfully, only to be picked up by his throat. 

“Is none of your concern right now. When and if it concerns you, I will let you know,” he snarled. He waited until the demon nodded fearfully before he threw him to the ground. “Kroni, Moloch, you will guard these doors. No one is to disturb us for anything short of an emergency. Understood?” They both nodded and took a place on either side of the doors, and Lucifer turned and stormed back inside.


	2. Chapter 2

It was days before Chloe managed to do anything more than whimper and scream, but Lucifer and Maze both stayed by her side, applying the ointment three times a day to both her and Lucifer. Lucifer could tell by his own healing that it was making progress. He was almost able to cover the burns with his normal skin now, but it was still very painful. He knew that Chloe had it worse though. Not only was it her entire body, probably even inside if she had inhaled any of it, which was likely, but she was less used to that kind of pain. He just wished that he could do anything to take the pain away from her. Even thoughts of how she got there and why took a backseat to that wish as he paced the room for days, not eating or sleeping despite Maze’s entreaties for him to do so. 

Three days after she had arrived, her eyes snapped open and she started looking frantically around the room. “Lucifer,” she rasped out. 

The devil immediately stopped his pacing and almost flew to the chair next to the bed. “I’m here, darling.” He bit back any other words that were tempted to come out. He refused to lie to her even now. Everything wasn’t okay, and he had no idea if it would ever be okay again, so he had no platitudes to offer her. She turned towards his voice and managed a smile, reaching out her hand to him, but he pulled away. “Your skin is still burned. Touch will hurt you more,” he explained at the hurt look in her eyes. 

“I don’t care,” she reached out again. “I just…need to touch you. To…To know that…that you’re real,” she whispered as a tear leaked from her eye. 

Lucifer slowly reached out a hand to gently take hers. He hated the idea of causing her any more pain, but he understood what she needed. It was the same thing he did. “Ch-Chloe,” he gasped, losing the battle with his own tears at the feel of her hand in his. He wasn’t sure whether the tears were because of the pain she was in, the foreign feeling of her burned hand, or just the fact that she was here at all, or maybe it was all of the above. 

“I-I missed you…so much,” she told him, squeezing his hand as tightly as she could manage without screaming in pain before letting go and reaching up to trace lightly over his face. 

“I missed you too, darling, but I would never have wanted you here…how did you get here?” He didn’t get an answer as she was drifting back into unconsciousness. At least that brief waking was enough for Maze to be able to convince Lucifer to eat something and get a little bit of sleep, even if it was just dozing off in the chair for an hour or two at a time. 

It was a few more days before she was awake for longer, and while she still winced at every moment, the pain wasn’t nearly so bad anymore. She even managed to get out of bed and start walking around the room while Lucifer was dozing and Maze had stepped out. She was barely able to get across the room to inspect the area before Maze came back though. “Chloe!” she exclaimed, seeing her out of bed, which startled Lucifer awake. 

Lucifer jumped to his feet and rushed over to her, holding out his hands as if to steady her, but not touching her. “You shouldn’t be out of bed, detective,” he admonished lightly.

“I’m fine,” she told them both and at the twin skeptically looks she amended it. “Okay, not fine exactly, but better. I’m still sore, but it’s a manageable sore now.” 

“Still…” Lucifer said, trying to herd her back to the bed. Chloe obviously didn’t want to go though, because she took full advantage of his open arms and stepped into them, hugging him lightly. It hurt, but not nearly as much as waiting even longer for this would have. She smiled against his chest as she felt his arms wrap very carefully and almost feather light around her back. 

It felt like forever that they stood there like that, neither of them daring to say a word. Neither of them noticed Maze step outside to give them some privacy as they just reveled in being close again. When he finally let her go and stepped back, a broken whine came from her throat before she cut it off. She took a few deep breaths and looked down at her body with a wince. “I guess this is where you got your other form from huh?” she asked in what was clearly a failed attempt at a joke. 

“Yes. I wish you never had to learn that,” he said sadly. 

“I can see why you don’t really want to touch me,” she said forcing her to look away from her own hideousness.

Lucifer choked and took a step back towards her, placing a hand gently on her cheek. “No, Chloe. No. That has nothing to do with it. You have to know that,” he told her desperately. “I just…can’t bear the thought of you being in any more pain than you have to.” 

She brightened considerably at that. Part of her had suspected that, but she needed to hear it. She needed to know. Especially after her reactions to his other form. She stepped closer to him and pulled his head down for a soft kiss and he choked a sob as their lips met, but resisted the urge to pull her tighter against him. He’d seen how much pulling away would have hurt her worse than any physical pain, but he would let her dictate the pressure she could handle. The kiss didn’t last long and when it broke, she smiled happily, sliding her hand to his cheek. “I can’t believe I’m really here,” she whispered. 

“Yes, about that,” Lucifer drawled. “Why are you here? /How/ are you here?” 

Chloe snorted derisively and called Maze back in before went to sit on the bed. Maze deserved to hear the story too. Lucifer sat gingerly next to her once Maze claimed the chair. “When I died, your stupid brothers wouldn’t listen to me when I told them I wanted to come here. They forced me to go with them to heaven, no matter how hard I fought them.”

“Because that’s where you belong, darling,” Lucifer tried to reason with her. 

“Well it’s not where I want to be, and it should be my choice damnit,” she snapped. 

“This is no place for you, Chloe,” he tried again. “You’re too good. Too pure to be stuck in a place like this.”

“You listen to me, Lucifer Morningstar,” Chloe said, irritated. “I’ve had to put up with the last hundred years of your family forcing me to do things against my will, and I will not put up with it from you too. It is MY choice and no one is going to take it away from me. Understand?” 

“You can’t argue with that,” Maze said smugly. 

Lucifer sighed sadly, but nodded. He wished she had made a different choice, but he couldn’t argue with the fact that she had a right to make it for herself. “That doesn’t mean they had to throw you in the pits,” he said, holding onto his anger towards his family. 

“That would kinda be my fault,” she admitted sheepishly. 

“What do you mean?” Maze asked before Lucifer could decide on a reaction. 

“Well when they wouldn’t let me come here, I kept trying to escape, but they kept catching me and shoving me right back in that horrible place.”

“Horrible?” Lucifer asked incredulously. “It’s heaven, darling. It’s designed to be paradise.”

“But you weren’t there,” Chloe said softly, taking his hand in hers. “There’s no paradise for me without you. My paradise is wherever you are.” 

Lucifer just gaped at her for a moment and they both ignored Maze’s theatrical gagging sounds. “But eventually they let you go?” Lucifer asked when he finally found words. 

“Not exactly,” she told him. “After the fourteenth time they caught me trying to escape, I tried to think of a new way, so I started thinking of the little I knew about why you got sent here. There weren’t any primitive humans around to tempt with forbidden fruits which just left one idea. I kinda…um…” 

“What did you do?” Lucifer asked worriedly. 

“Well…I started a rebellion. With as many of the human souls as I could get on my side. Mostly the older ones that were bored,” she admitted. 

Maze collapsed into laughter as Lucifer jumped to his feet. “You did WHAT?” 

“Go Decker!” Maze cheered through her laughter. 

Chloe just looked at Lucifer as smugly as she could manage. “You heard me.” 

Lucifer paced for a few minutes, running his hand through his hair in agitation as he muttered things that Chloe couldn’t quite make out, but judging by Maze’s continued laughter they were apparently amusing to the demon. She could make a good guess as to what it was anyway. She just waited patiently for him to stop and plop back down on the bed. “So then they just threw you down here?” 

“Well your father tried to talk me around first, but I told him the same thing I told you. That my heaven is wherever you are and without you, heaven was worse than hell. He just said that ‘he’d show me hell’ and then I was falling.”


	3. Chapter 3

Lucifer winced at Chloe’s recitation of his father’s words. It had been so similar to what he’d said to him so long ago. “I’m so sorry, detective,” Lucifer said sadly. “This is my fault.”

It was Chloe’s turn to gape at him for a moment. “How could it possibly be your fault?”

“For loving you. For letting you get close to me. For going to earth in the first place. For setting the example. For…for never telling you how truly horrible falling was…” 

Chloe sighed and slid next to him, wrapping an arm around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder. “None of that makes this your fault Lucifer. No matter what comes of it, knowing you is a gift. Loving you is a gift. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Ever. And knowing how horrible it is wouldn’t have made a difference. I still would have stopped at nothing to get back to you. I’ll make it through this and it’s more than worth it to be able to be by your side for eternity.” 

“I should go get some dinner for us,” Maze said, making her escape. She had the story now, and she didn’t know how much she could stomach of Lucifer’s never-ending guilt complex or their lovey-dovey stuff. 

They both nodded at her, before turning their attention back to their own conversation. “You still can’t deny the fact that if you had never known me then you would be happy in paradise right now,” Lucifer pointed out. 

“Maybe. Maybe not. But I know that I wouldn’t be nearly as happy as I can be with you, even here. Without you, I would have lived the rest of my life as a crappy detective, never recovering from the Palmetto incident, if I managed to keep my job at all. Dan and I would have combusted a lot worse than we did. Trixie probably would have been a wreck over it. And most importantly, I would never have known what it was like to fall in love with someone so completely. There would always have been something missing. I just wouldn’t have known what it was.”

“You can’t know any of that,” Lucifer protested. 

“I do know that,” Chloe told him. “You’ve helped make me who I am, Lucifer. For someone who was only in my life for a few short years, you had a profound impact on it. You need to understand that the pain I’m in now is only temporary…isn’t it?” she suddenly asked worriedly, realizing that she had no idea if he was still in pain from his other form. 

“It is…but it’s not a pleasant place here,” he told her trying to explain his stance. 

“When are you going to realize that doesn’t matter to me, Lucifer?” she told him. “This pain is only temporary, and once it’s over, I’ll have eternity with you. It doesn’t get more pleasant than that” She suddenly had a thought pop into her mind that brought with it a crippling insecurity. “A-assuming you still want me, that is.” 

Lucifer let out a broken laugh. “Like I could ever say no now even if I wanted to.” 

She furrowed her brow and leaned away from him. “No, Lucifer. Don’t. I don’t want it like that. If you don’t still love me…If you don’t still want me…then please don’t…don’t…” her throat tightened up as the lump in it grew. 

Lucifer turned to her almost frantically and couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and pulling her back to him. “No, detective. That’s not what I meant. I will love you for my entire existence and there is nothing that could ever change that. I would love nothing more than to have you by my side for eternity. I just wish it hadn’t cost you so much…”

“I would pay the cost again and again. Don’t you know that, Lucifer,” she said softly, echoing his words from when he had jumped in front of an axe for her so long ago. 

Just like that, he finally got it, and the tension fled from his body as he leaned his head against hers. He would gladly have made that sacrifice for her if their positions were reversed and never looked back. He almost had, in fact, many times. He finally started to understand that she really did love him just as much as he loved her. It still didn’t stop one final protest though. “But I’m not worth it.”

“Yes, you are,” she whispered. “You’re worth everything to me Lucifer. Always.” 

“I will do everything in my power to make you as happy as possible here, Chloe,’ he vowed. It was the least he could do. 

“All I need is you,” she told him. “Anything else is just a bonus.” 

“I will ensure that you have as many bonuses as possible then. You will be my queen after all.” 

“Don’t you think you’re skipping a step or two there?” she asked amusedly. When he looked at her curiously, she added, “Well you haven’t even asked me to marry you yet.” 

Lucifer chuckled. “There isn’t really a concept of marriage here, given the whole ‘blessed by god’ thing, but I’m sure we can make some adjustments and make it happen if you like. Maybe we’ll start a trend.” 

“Still skipping a step,” she teased. 

This time Lucifer let out a real laugh, though it was colored by his nerves as he made a split-second decision that he never thought he would even have a chance to make. Just because it was quick didn’t mean that he was any less than completely sure though. He let her go and slid off the bed to take a knee in front of her. “Chloe Jane Decker. Will you marry me and be my queen?” 

She grinned happily and nodded, jumping into his arms, trying and failing to suppress her whimper, but didn’t let him pull away at the sound. “Yes. I’ll marry you, Lucifer.” 

Once she let go, Lucifer pulled his own ring off his finger and slid it on hers, using a little bit of his power to resize it to fit her finger. It was the only ring he had and it meant nearly as much to him as she did, so it was only right for her to have it. “We can work out the details when you’re feeling better,” he promised. 

“No, it’s fine. It would be nice to have something to keep my mind off the pain,” she told him. She’d rather get everything nailed down sooner rather than later anyway. She knew it was ridiculous, but she couldn’t help the sinking fear that all of this was just a dream and it would end soon. She wanted as much as she could get before that happened. “I was wondering though…”

“What is it, darling?” Lucifer asked, willing to give her anything she desired. 

“Would it be possible for me to…you know…look like I did before? Like you do?” she asked hopefully. 

“You wouldn’t have the same control over the changes as I do, since you’re not an angel, but I could give you your old look back if you want it, yes. I would have to refresh it if you got angry enough for it to drop and anytime you wanted to drop it, but it’s definitely doable.” 

“Then yes. Let’s do that please,” she told him. 

“It should wait until you’re more healed though,” he told her. “The pressure of the new skin on the burns can be more than a little painful before then.”

She looked slightly dejected. “I guess you’re stuck looking at me like this a little longer then.”

He reached out a hand to her chin and tilted her head up to look at him. “You are just as beautiful now as you were the day I met you Chloe. Nothing could change that,” he said earnestly. 

The only thing running through her mind at that was the knowledge that Lucifer doesn’t lie. Ever. For anything. She felt herself getting choked up again and couldn’t help but pull him into a kiss, this time deepening it as she did her best to show him the only way she could just how much that meant to her. When she broke the kiss, she looked deep into his brown eyes, and realized that something was missing. “Let me see you too,” she whispered, trailing a hand down his cheek. 

“You don’t have to…” 

“I want to, Lucifer. Please,” she told him. She knew that she hadn’t reacted so well in the past, and couldn’t believe she had been so ridiculous and naïve. His face didn’t change who he was to her any more than her face changed her to him. Lucifer sighed in defeat and looked away as his features melted away, showing the scarred and burned visage that was so much like hers. Her hand on his cheek turned him back to look at her so that he could see the love and acceptance in her eyes before she kissed him again and he let out a strangled sound at the sensation, unable to resist pulling her closer, and just barely managing to moderate his grip to not hurt her too much.


	4. Chapter 4

Maze chose that moment to re-enter the room with a large tray full of food and set it on the desk. “You should both eat something. Neither have you have eaten much the last week.” 

Lucifer got up and helped Chloe to her feet as they went over and started picking food off the tray. At Chloe’s first bite though she scrunched up her nose. “I thought it was just my taste buds or my delirium before, but you taste normal,” she told Lucifer. 

“A side effect of hell, dearest. Everything tastes at least a little bit like ash. The sweeter things like fruits are more palatable, but even they pale in comparison to what you’re used to,” Lucifer told her apologetically. 

“Don’t worry,” Maze told her, munching on a chunk of meat. “You’ll get used to it.” 

“I just wish you didn’t have to,” Lucifer added. 

Chloe just rolled her eyes. “Still worth it,” she told them. She wasn’t about to point out how much she deserved all this and worse with the way she had reacted after she saw his face. She knew that he would disagree, but he had sacrificed so much for her so many times and she had repaid him with betrayal and attempted murder. Worse than that even, she had used his own fragile feelings against him. The fact that he had so little self-worth that he forgave her so freely just made it even worse. 

“So how did the munchkin settle into heaven?” Maze asked, trying to make conversation. 

“A little better than me, but not by much. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her headed down here soon enough too.” 

“No!” Lucifer exclaimed. “You can’t possibly allow her to go through this too.”

“I would never want her to, obviously, but she grew up with all of mine and Dan’s stubbornness combined, with a dash of you two thrown in too. I learned about the time she turned twenty that I had no chance of telling her what to do anymore. I did try my best before all this though, so we’ll see. I’m surprised neither of you asked about her life or anything,” she said trying to change the subject. 

“Oh we know all that,” Maze said dismissively. “She kept Lucifer updated through prayer daily and he kept me updated. Once she got to heaven though, we couldn’t get anything anymore.” 

“She…she prayed to you?” she asked Lucifer wide-eyed and the devil nodded. “I never even thought…why didn’t I think…I’m so sorry, Lucifer. I should have too.”

Lucifer shook his head. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, detective. I’m actually rather glad you didn’t.” At the look on her face, he rushed to explain. “It was hard enough hearing from her and about you knowing that I would never be able to see either of you again. Hearing your voice too might have broken me.”

“Even more, you mean,” Maze muttered. 

“What do you mean?” Chloe asked Maze curiously. 

“It’s not important,” Lucifer tried to say, but backed down at Chloe’s glare. 

“The demons quickly learned to avoid him for a few days a month after her prayers came in. He had a tendency to roast first and ask questions later,” Maze told her unashamedly. 

“You said she prayed every day though?” Chloe asked confused. 

“A day elsewhere is a month here,” Lucifer explained. “Just one of Dad’s little cosmic jokes.” He turned to look at Maze. “And she doesn’t need to know that side of me, Mazikeen,” he said warningly. 

“Yes, I do, Lucifer,” Chloe protested. “I love you and I want to know all of you. Good, bad, and worse. More than that though, if I’m going to be your partner here, I /need/ to know.”

“I don’t want you to know what I’m like here,” he said worriedly. “What I /have/ to be like here.” 

“But I’m here with you now. Unless you intend to keep me locked in these rooms forever, I’m going to see it at some point,” she reasoned. “I can’t even begin to imagine what life is like here yet, so I have no basis to judge you on. I can’t exactly judge you by human standards when dealing with demons any more than I expected you to judge humans by demon standards.”

Lucifer sighed heavily, admitting defeat, but that didn’t stop him from turning to Maze and saying, “Sometimes I regret taking you to earth with me. You weren’t nearly so…free-willed before.” 

Maze just smirked at him, not taking offense to his words. “But even if you hadn’t, she’s my queen now. I follow her commands just as much as yours.” 

“I’m not actually the queen yet,” Chloe protested. “Not until after the wedding.” 

“Wedding?” Maze asked curiously. 

“On the contrary, darling. Hell has already provided a second throne,” Lucifer said at the same time before explaining the idea of them getting married, with the obvious adjustments, but Maze was the one who pointed out the problem that Lucifer had been too worried about giving her everything she wanted to see yet. 

“You intend to stand up in front of all of demondom and air your love and emotions for all to see?” she asked pointedly. 

Lucifer opened and closed his mouth a few times as he realized that could never work. “What’s wrong?” Chloe asked, realizing that she missed something. 

“They would see it as a weakness,” Lucifer said with a sad sigh before turning to Chloe. “You remember how Maze used to be when you first met her?” 

“Yeah, but she changed so why can’t they?” she asked confused. 

“I changed because of the constant contact with humanity,” Maze pointed out.

“And I had to force her to back down more than once in the process of that too,” Lucifer added. 

“These demons won’t have that contact with humanity and he can’t fight them all at once. To show weakness like that would risk a full rebellion. If that happened, then Lucifer might be able to escape back to earth, and even take me with him, but you’re a human soul. You would be trapped here regardless, and I know neither of us would even think of leaving you behind,” Maze explained. 

“Okay, so no wedding,” Chloe said, voice tinged with slight disappointment. 

“No public wedding,” Lucifer said, mind changing his ideas to suit the new circumstances. “We can still do vows and stuff here in private with Maze as a witness.” His glare cut off Maze’s groan before it could begin. If this was all he could give her then he wasn’t about to let his right hand demon take that away by her reaction. 

Chloe brightened slightly at that. It wasn’t as good as a full wedding and all, but it was better than nothing. It wouldn’t be much different than being married at the courthouse like she’d done with Dan. “Okay. That works. When should we do it?” 

“Well in the interests of consummation,” Lucifer waggled his eyebrows playful at her, “it should probably wait until you’re healed.

She laughed and nodded. As much as she wanted to say screw it and take him here and now, she knew that the pain she would feel would greatly diminish her enjoyment and she wanted their first time to be perfect. She’d certainly waited long enough for it. “That sounds like a good idea. I’d like to be me again first too.” When Lucifer started to protest, she just gave him a look and he stopped. She knew how he felt about her appearance, but she wasn’t any more comfortable with it than he was in his other form. Thankfully he seemed to get it and just nodded. 

By this time, Chloe was starting to drift again sleepily, and Lucifer wasted no time putting her back to bed. He and Maze took the time to slather her in the ointment again, and she was sure that she would be blushing brightly if she had any skin left. This was the first time she’d been truly awake for this part. She wanted to get her mind off what they were doing though, so she asked, “Have you done this before me?” 

“I did back when Lucifer first got here. He was in pretty much the same condition,” Maze told her. 

“I didn’t realize you were so old,” Chloe said bluntly before trying to backtrack, but Maze just cut her off with a laugh. 

“Being old isn’t an insult for us like it is with humans,” she told her. “I am the eldest child of Lilith, so I’m technically the first Lilim. By the time Lucifer got here there were about a hundred of us though. Only about twenty of the first generation. The rest were the children of my brothers and sisters.” 

“So you’re the first demon?” she asked in awe. 

“No, technically that would be my mother,” she explained. 

“Right. You were saying though, about Lucifer getting here?” Chloe brought the story back on track. 

“Just like when you got here, a throne grew up from the ground as he was falling towards us. My mother, of course, attempted to sit on the throne only to be badly burned by it, so I assumed that the throne was for the one who was falling. I wanted to get on his good side if he was going to end up being the king, so I waded into the pools to get him just like he did to get you. I spent two weeks putting this ointment on him three times a day, and made sure that he was kept safe while he healed. Most of the others helped me, but some of them sided with my mother.” 

“Which is why she is currently locked in one of the high security cells and has been since I had to make an example of her when I was fit to do so,” Lucifer added.

“She expected to rule him just like she ruled the rest of us. You can imagine how well that went over,” Maze laughed and Chloe joined her. 

“Don’t forget to point out the dozen assassination attempts before I locked her away too,” Lucifer said defensively, still worried about how Chloe was going to take his darker side. “And we’re done,” he told her. Chloe managed to convince Lucifer to lay down with her, despite how gingerly he held her, and Maze headed back to her own room next door. Lucifer got closer to a full night’s sleep that night than he had in a week, but still woke worriedly every time she twitched or whimpered in her sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning Lucifer and Chloe were woken by a knock on the door. Lucifer got out of bed as gingerly as he could without hurting Chloe before he called, “Enter.” When Maze came in carrying a breakfast tray he visibly relaxed. 

“Breakfast first or ointment first?” she asked. 

“Breakfast. Please,” Chloe said managing to sit up. She wasn’t quite as good at going from asleep to on her feet as Lucifer was. As they picked at the breakfast, Chloe couldn’t help but ask Lucifer, “Do you ever get your own food?” It was more curious than accusing though. 

“No,” he told her. “I’m the king. It wouldn’t be seemly for me to get things for myself.” 

“But can’t you just order them to leave you alone over it?” Chloe asked confused. 

“This is a lot like the whole weakness thing,” Lucifer explained. “My getting my own food, to them, would symbolize my weakness in not being able to get someone to do it for me. They have certain expectations that have to be played to at all times. The only place I can just let go and be myself is in these rooms and then only when there are no other demons here,” he said wearily. 

“So…what will be expected of me?” she asked worriedly. She didn’t want to have to have people waiting on her hand and foot. 

“Roughly the same,” Lucifer told her. “Technically, Maze should be making my plate and cutting up my food, giving me massages, among other things, but since it’s all done in here, no one has to know that she isn’t. That’s why she’s my right hand. Even before earth, she was more accepting than most about my desire to do things for myself.”

“She can do the same for me right? I don’t have to have someone of my own?” Chloe asked hopefully. 

“In here, yes. Out there, you will need someone else to function as your bodyguard and assassin since Maze’s priority will be me. Or I can get someone else and you can have Maze if you’d prefer.” 

“Doesn’t it bother you that you’re being treated like property?” she asked Maze, not really liking how Lucifer had worded that. 

“That’s how things are here,” she said with a shrug. “Demons are the property of the king and now the queen to do with as he will. The fact that he rarely exercises that right doesn’t change it.” 

“So do you want Maze transferred to your service?” Lucifer asked, wanting to get that question out of the way before the argument started. 

“Only if Maze doesn’t mind,” Chloe said firmly and looked at Maze. “I don’t know any other demons, so you’re the only one I trust.” 

“It’s fine with me,” Maze agreed easily. It would be hard for her to switch her focus from Lucifer after all this time, but she’d done it before and it wasn’t like they would probably be apart all that much outside these rooms. 

Lucifer nodded and asked Maze, “Do you have any recommendations on a replacement?” 

“Just for bodyguard and assassin duties?” she confirmed and Lucifer nodded. “Moloch. He’s one of the best I’ve trained. Not really good with the other duties, but since that’s not needed…”

“Okay. Once the detective is ready to get out and about, I’ll make the change,” Lucifer said. 

“So will I be expected to treat them as property too?” Chloe asked distastefully. 

“To some degree, yes. How much is up to you, but you should know that the nicer you are at normal times, the more ruthless I will need to be when someone tests you,” Lucifer told her. 

“The more ruthless /you/ will have to be?” Chloe asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“I don’t want this place to change you, detective,” Lucifer said sadly. “I don’t want it to turn you as cold as it turns the rest of us. If that means that I have to punish in your stead, then I won’t hesitate to do so.”

Chloe gave him a sad smile and reached out a hand to his arm. “I appreciate that, Lucifer. More than you know. But this is the situation we’re in. I’m here for good, and I have to adjust to that, no matter how hard it is. I will fight my own battles. I just need to get my bearings and figure out how.”

“Well you should have nearly as much control here as I do given the second throne, but we should probably go ahead and test that,” Lucifer said, not wanting to give up the argument, but deciding to save it for later. 

“How do we test it?” she asked. 

“Give Maze an order, but not in your normal voice. Try and combine your pissed off mom voice with your cop dealing with a crazed suspect voice and then double the intensity,” Lucifer told her. 

“I don’t want to force Maze to do anything,” she said with a wince. “Can’t we test it on someone else?” 

Lucifer shook his head. “And let the others know that you’re not sure how to command them yet? No. Not an option. You don’t have to tell her to do anything big. Just…tell her to stand up or something of the sort.”

Chloe took a deep breath and said, “Stand up.” It didn’t work though and Maze even laughed. 

“Come on, Decker. That was weak. You weren’t even trying.”

Chloe screwed up her face and concentrated for a minute, getting in the right frame of mind and tried again. “STAND UP!” she boomed, her voice taking on the same growling quality that Lucifer’s did when he was issuing a command. 

This time Maze jumped to her feet jerkily, her plate clattering from her lap to the floor and she stood at attention for a few seconds before relaxing. She winced and rubbed her chest. “There you go,” she said proudly. 

“Did that hurt?” Chloe asked worriedly. 

“Not hurt, but it’s not exactly comfortable. There’s a reason we usually do what he says the first time before he has to go there,” she said with a chuckle. 

“Chances are, if you need to issue a command like that, you’ll already be pissed anyway or on the way to it, so you should be fine,” Lucifer assured her. “The only problem I foresee with it would be when the demons question you.”

“They aren’t allowed to question?” Chloe asked incredulously. 

“Not when they are told something, no. Their normal lives, belief systems, family drama, all that stuff is theirs to deal with, but when one of us tells them something there is no questioning of it,” Lucifer told her. At the horrified look on her face, Lucifer tried to explain. “You have to understand, darling. These aren’t humans or even angels we’re dealing with. They are demons. With the obvious exception due to extenuation circumstances, they /have/ to be kept on a tight leash. Otherwise they will run amuck and kill, rape, maim, and torture everyone and everything in their path. Even each other.”

“He’s right,” Maze told her. “When Lucifer took me to earth, he enforced a strict moral code on me. That’s the only thing that allowed me to fit in as well as I did, and we all know that even after that and even after developing feelings, I still reacted with violence first in any situation.” 

Chloe sighed and nodded. “Yeah. Okay. I get it. I don’t like it, but I know that’s just my human sensibilities getting in the way. I’ll deal with it.” 

“And until you can, Maze and I will be more than happy to pick up the slack for you,” Lucifer assured her, still hating how this whole experience was going to change her and wishing there were another way. 

“Anything else I should know about how I’ll be expected to act out there?” she asked. “Will I be expected to be submissive to you or anything?” 

“Oh dad, no,” Lucifer said with a look of distaste. “If I wanted someone submissive and agreeable without a mind of their own, you know I had my pick of partners that frequented my bed. I want /you/ detective. I /need/ you.”

Chloe smiled brightly and took his hand. “I know, Lucifer. I just wanted to make sure that it would be the same out there.” 

“Yes, well, as far as that goes, they have never had a queen before, so we are free to write the rules on that one. As an angel, I would still have to be the primary since I hold the majority of the control over the dimension, which means if we disagree, I’ll have to be the one to make the final call. We should probably avoid arguing in public just so that neither of us intentionally or not, undermines the authority of the other. Arguments can take place in private if needed, though discussions are fine. If our orders conflict they will follow mine over yours of course, but otherwise, I fully intend for us to be partners here just as we were on earth.” 

“Except this time you’re the boss instead of me,” Chloe chuckled. She could live with that.


	6. Chapter 6

It wasn’t long after her ointment treatment when there was a knock at the door. Lucifer made sure she was covered from the chest down, and called, “Enter.” 

“Apologies for the intrusion my lord,” the entering demon said with a bow. “But the special project has made another escape.” 

Lucifer grinned. “Excellent. Unfortunately, I am a bit indisposed at the moment.” He turned to Maze. “Mazikeen, would you like to lead this hunt?” 

Maze got an even more predatory grin than Lucifer. “I would love nothing more, my lord,” she told him, using the correct form of address with the other demon present. She pulled both of her curved blades from her belt and spun them in her hands as both of the demons rushed out the door. 

Once they were gone, Chloe felt free to speak. “I thought you told me once that no one ever escaped from Hell?”

“They don’t. He hasn’t escaped from hell. Just from his cell. That usually isn’t possible either, but I may have made some adjustments. He’s a very special case,” Lucifer said with an evil grin. 

“Oh? Someone I know?” she asked, pushing her discomfort at the idea of the torture the person was going through away. She was going to have to get used to that. 

“Yes, but it’s best left as a surprise,” he told her. “I’ll take you to see him once you’re up and around.” 

“Oookay,” Chloe said, not entirely sure that she was going to like this surprise, but willing to trust Lucifer enough to let it be for now. It wasn’t much longer before she was starting to doze off again though. 

The next few days were spent much the same way. Going over the changes Chloe was going to have to get used to and how she would need to act with the demons during the times she was awake. She was still taking a long nap in the middle of the day though as her body continued to heal. Once the worst of the pain was gone, Lucifer, true to his word, gave Chloe her normal body back and she sighed in relief. She could still feel the residual pain and discomfort, and wanted to wait another day or two before they jumped into bed, partially to get used to her new/old skin and partially so the last of the pain would fade. Instead she pitched the idea of meeting the demons and getting a tour of hell. 

“Are you sure you’re ready for that, dearest?” Lucifer asked worriedly. 

“Not really, but I don’t know that I ever will be. It has to be done sooner or later, and I know you probably need to get back to work instead of being in here babysitting me all the time anyway,” she told him. 

He couldn’t argue with that, but still, “We can take some more time if you need it. You’re my first priority.” 

Chloe smiled brightly at him. “Thank you, Lucifer. But I shouldn’t be. You have an entire kingdom out there that has to be your priority. While I was hurt, it was fine, but I’m okay now and it’s time to get back out there.” 

“She’ll be fine,” Maze jumped in. “We got this.” 

Lucifer sighed. He’d rather hoped to put this off a little longer. Or perhaps forever. It had been a fool’s hope though and he knew it. “Very well. Maze, if you want to call for an assembly in the throne room in an hour.” 

Maze nodded and headed out to do just that. Maze had already confirmed that the throne room had also had a second throne added in addition to the one that was added to oversee things. Lucifer spent the last little bit of time giving Chloe a quick refresher course, more due to his nerves than her need for one. Maze had brought her a dress to wear befitting a warrior queen. It had a tight fitting leather bodice with wide shoulder straps and a high neck, owing to Chloe’s own modesty. The skirt was floor length and had multiple layers in a ripped pattern so the strips were only a couple inches thick for ease of movement. She was barefoot, as everyone always was here, and it only took her a few minutes to be ready to go. 

Lucifer held out his arm to escort her properly, and she forced herself to keep her eyes forward as the crowd parted for them. She had been warned about the heat and the ash falling from the sky, but it was still a shock to her system at first and she resisted the urge to cough. Once they got to the thrones and sat, however, Maze thankfully handed her a glass of water that helped soothe the dryness of her throat. She noticed that she was the only one affected though, and wondered if it was because she was human or because they had all just gotten used to it after so long. Hopefully taking the water wouldn’t show weakness, but she was sure that Maze wouldn’t have given it to her otherwise. 

They waited for the murmurs to die down, before Lucifer spoke. “This is your queen. You will treat her words as mine.” 

“Does this mean that Eve isn’t our queen anymore?” someone asked.

Lucifer got up angrily and reached out a hand, pulling the offending demon to him and lifting him in the air, choking him. “Eve has never been your queen you simpleton. You have no queen unless /I/ announce her. Understood?” The demon nodded making a choking sound as he tried to speak. “This is the second time in as many appearances that you’ve spoken out of turn Pruflas. Do I need to cut out your tongue to teach you your place?” Chloe had to forcibly hold herself back from interfering. 

“N-no m-my lord,” he wheezed out as Lucifer loosened his grip just enough to allow him to speak. 

“Consider this your final warning, Pruflas,” he snapped as he threw the demon to the ground. “Would anyone else like to question your new queen’s validity?” When no one else spoke or even moved, he snapped, “Dismissed.” 

Lucifer held out his arm for Chloe again as he leaned down and whispered. “Still up for the tour?” When she nodded, he led the way out. “Mazikeen, you will accompany us.” Technically he should have Moloch with them as well, but he decided to wait and talk to him tomorrow. He would give Chloe the day to adjust before being trailed by an unknown demon. 

Once they were walking the deserted halls, Chloe whispered, “Is it okay to speak freely here?” 

Lucifer and Maze both looked around before nodding. “As long as you do so quietly,” Lucifer told her worried about eavesdroppers. 

“Was it really necessary to be so harsh with that demon? It seemed like a simple question.”

“Perhaps it seemed that way, but it wasn’t at all. Eve claimed to be my queen to the rebels. I never announced her or even confirmed anything of the sort. By asking the question, he was implying that he held loyalty to her as a queen over you and trusted her word over mine. There will probably be talk about my not dealing with him harshly enough actually.”

She hadn’t thought of it that way, but it made sense. “There won’t be any trouble over it will there?” she asked worriedly. “Why didn’t you do more then?” 

“No, dearest. There will be no trouble. Showing mercy occasionally is no danger as long as it is very occasional. It keeps them on their toes, never knowing when or where it’s coming. As for why, well…” he trailed off, not sure he wanted to answer that question. 

“Because of me. Because I was watching,” she figured out anyway. 

She stopped and used her hand in his arm to stop him with her. “You’re going to have to get over that, Lucifer. Just like I’m going to have to get over my squeamishness with it,” she said firmly. 

“I know. But it doesn’t have to be done the first day unless someone forces my hand,” he argued. 

“Fair enough. But next time, you take care of it or I will,” she said, not willing to allow his worry for her to doom them all. 

Lucifer let out a chuckle. “Yes, dear.” Maze couldn’t hold back her snort of amusement at that. “Something to say, Mazikeen?” 

“Not at all, my lord,” she said amusedly. 

Chloe just grinned at the byplay before turning serious. “Now. I believe someone mentioned something before about a special project that was a surprise?”

“That is where we are headed first, actually,” Lucifer told her. “This wing houses the souls that deserve hell the most, other than the dictator tyrants. They have their own wing. And here we are…” Lucifer said as he placed his hand on the door to pause the hell loop. He didn’t think Chloe would want to see that. 

When the door opened, Chloe’s jaw dropped. “Greg?” she was surprised at the sight of her son-in-law.


	7. Chapter 7

Chloe looked at Lucifer confused. “What did he do?” She knew that Lucifer wouldn’t call him the worst of the worst for no reason, but given how overprotective he could be of Trixie, she wasn’t sure just how good the reason would be. 

“Your offspring never told you what happened after your d-death?” he stumbled over the word, even after so long. 

“No. She told me that they divorced, but never wanted to give details, so I didn’t press.” 

Greg chose that moment to come out of his stupor and spotted his mother-in-law. “Please,” he begged falling to the floor and starting to crawl to her. “You have to get me out of here.” 

Lucifer stopped his movement with a kick to his side. “Shut up, cretin. If you think for one moment that she will even consider helping you when she learns of your sins, you’re insane. Now sit down and shut up.” Greg immediately did as he was told, despite the worry in his eyes. He had learned the hard way not to disobey the devil. 

Lucifer turned back to Chloe. “We will begin the story with your death,” he told her. “Of course, your will left everything to Beatrice, including the entire fortune and properties that I had left you. This piece of scum, dutifully waited until the inheritance cleared before serving her with divorce papers and taking off with his mistress and half of everything she now owned. A week after losing her mother, she lost her husband as well and was now a single mother of three.” 

Chloe glared at Greg, pissed, but still not thinking that it deserved all this. “That’s not the end of the story though is it?” she asked worriedly. 

“Not by a long shot, my queen.” He called her by her title just to see the little shit wet himself and he smirked. “To make matters worse, he then decided to use Beatrice’s fondness for me as an impetus to take her children from her as well. It may have worked, it may not have, but Linda and Amenadiel were kind enough to intervene on her behalf and prevent it.” 

“How dare you?” Chloe asked him heatedly and he whimpered, but still didn’t dare speak. 

“Oh, I’m afraid that’s nowhere near the worst part, dearest,” Lucifer told her, intentionally dragging it out to make Greg more and more anxious. “You see, the fool of a judge still gave him partial custody of the children, despite everything he had done up to this point.” Chloe wasn’t surprised at that. Nothing so far would have been bad enough to lose him custody. “For many years Beatrice prayed to me her fears about what he was doing to their children. They would come home with bruises, that could be explained by playing rough, but not that many or that often. She had tried going to the authorities, but they found nothing amiss. The children were acting out more and more and he was poisoning their minds against her, and even turned it around trying to accuse her of abuse.”

Chloe was growling now and only Lucifer’s hand on her arm was keeping her from attacking the evil little worm. That hand told her that there was still more to the story though so she allowed it to hold her back. For now. 

Lucifer continued. “The day Beatrice prayed to me with her fear and some good though circumstantial evidence that this thing was doing far more than hitting their daughter was the day I gave into Mazikeen’s pleas and allowed a one time exception to the ban on possession so that his trip here could be…expedited.” 

“And I still thank you for giving me the honor,” Maze snarled and lunged at the man on the floor, making him jump and whimper.

“You don’t mean…he didn’t…” Chloe put her hand over her mouth as though to stop herself from vomiting. 

“Oh yes. He very soon spilled all once I had my hands on him. And it wasn’t just the daughter either,” he told her, removing his hand from her arm now that the story was over. 

Greg finally found his voice again at the sight of the thunder in his mother in law’s eyes. “You can’t believe him. He’s a liar…” 

The sentence was cut off by a hard backhand from Chloe, her ring digging a trough in his cheek. “Lucifer doesn’t lie you miserable piece of shit,” she snapped before kicking him a few times. She managed to stop herself before she went too far though. Hell or not, she wasn’t going to participate in torture personally unless she had to. “Please tell me his hell is fitting?” 

Lucifer smirked again. “He is slowly castrated, without drugs, in a loop, by Beatrice herself,” he told her, leaning down to whisper in her ear low enough that Greg couldn’t hear. “A demon illusioned to look like Beatrice.” 

“That’s all?” Chloe asked, still glaring hatefully at him, even as Lucifer led her out the door. 

He waited until they were in the hallway and thus away from Greg’s ears before he continued. “Yes, I thought that wasn’t quite enough either personally, which is why I made him a special project. I managed to create random gaps in his loops that allow him the illusion of escape, but the maze is filled with deadly and painful traps. Acid, spikes, blow-torches, spider and snake pits, all poisonous of course, and so on. All the while he is hunted by demons, and often me, with knives, whips, chains, etc, if he so much as slows down. Once he collapses from exhaustion, fear, or pain, we dump him right back in his loop again. That hope for freedom that gets dashed breaks him every time.” 

“I want in on the next hunt,” she said firmly. How quickly her resolution not to participate in torture broke when learning the extent of the crimes committed against her own child and grandchildren. 

“If you wish,” Lucifer said with a tinge of sadness to his tone. He feared for her state of mind if she participated, but he knew from her tone that she wouldn’t take no for an answer. He only hoped that she changed her mind between now and then once her anger had cooled. “Perhaps we should move on to a different section,” he suggested. 

Chloe nodded and took his arm again as they walked. “So you can’t change their hell loops at all?” she asked, picking up his desire to have made Greg’s worse. 

“I can make some changes, but I can’t change the substance of them. That comes from the person’s own mind. Their own guilts and fears. I can allow demons to play with the worst of them within the loop, but my abilities are limited.” He led her to a new wing which actually looked a little brighter if her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. Not that brighter meant much in hell. It was still dismal. Just not quite as much as where they had just left. “For example, there are many people here who don’t deserve to be.” 

“Then why are they here?” Chloe asked worriedly. 

“Because of misplaced guilt that weighs down their soul,” Lucifer told her sadly. “It’s not a perfect system. Obviously. It /was/ created by my father after all.”

“And you can’t do anything for them?” Chloe asked with compassion for both him and them. She knew how Lucifer felt about people being punished unfairly after all. 

“Not as much as I wish I could. Take this one for example,” he stopped at a door and looked in the window to see where the loop was before motioning for Chloe to look. “This woman loved that dog the way some people love their children, but the dog had anxiety issues. One day when she took him out for a walk, a child startled him and he had a panic attack and bit the child. She had no choice but to put him down. The guilt she felt over that is what brought her here. She felt like she should have paid closer attention, or she should have fought the law, or hidden him away, or something to avoid having him killed.”

“But that wasn’t her fault,” Chloe said, blinking back the tears from her eyes, remembering that she couldn’t show weakness here. “I could have happened to anyone.” 

“I know that. You know that. On some level, even she knows that, but that guilt still eats away at her. This loop I was able to extend. Not indefinitely unfortunately, but I’ve managed to give her about a year at a time of happy memories with her dog before the incident and death.” Chloe looked up at him with a watery smile. And people thought the devil was evil. “All of the ones in this wing have similar stories.” 

“You can’t just let them out? I mean, I know they can’t leave hell, but they could leave the loops couldn’t they?” 

“And go where?” Lucifer asked sadly. “A human soul is like a buffet to a demon. That’s why they are barred from entering all but the worst hells. I can’t bar them from anywhere else like that. Not even my own rooms. You are protected by your throne and the power it gives you over them, but these souls would have no such protection.”

“And I’m guessing you can’t just order the demons to leave them alone.”

“Imagine you put a T-bone steak in front of a starving dog and ordered him to leave it alone. He might fight the urge as long as you’re watching, and even try once his master turns his back, but he will break and go after it eventually. And no one will have any warning. That’s what it would be like to allow even a single human soul to travel freely through hell. Better that they stay safe in there than suffer even worse horrors out here.” 

Chloe sighed and nodded. “I still wish we could do more for them though.”

“As do I, dearest, but I’ve long ago come to accept the fact that I can’t.”

He took her arm again and they started heading back. He had more of the central area he wanted to show her now that she’d seen the two extremes. “What’s that wing?” Chloe asked, pointing down a dark hallway. 

“You don’t /ever/ want to go down there, darling. Trust me on that,” Lucifer assured her. 

“Why? Is that the tyrant wing or something?” 

Lucifer gave her a sad smile. “No, Chloe. That’s the suicide wing. About half of them teenagers.” 

“I’m guessing we can’t help them either?” Chloe asked sadly. 

“Unfortunately not. You see, the main reason that no one ever escapes from these rooms, despite the fact that they are not locked, is that they are trapped in the moment they are reliving. If you go into one of those rooms and tell one of those kids that life isn’t so bad, no matter how convincing you are or how much evidence you have, they can’t believe you, because in that moment of their life, it really was that bad and they are incapable of any different thought. There is nothing I can do to any of those loops to make them easier.”

Chloe sighed sadly again and nodded, resolving to listen to Lucifer and never go down there. She did have one question though, especially relevant as she thought of what Greg had done. “Just answer me one question?” When Lucifer nodded, she asked, “Are any of my grandchildren down there?” 

“Not that I’m aware,” Lucifer told her honestly. “They weren’t as of my last check a year ago, which would be less than two weeks on earth.” Lucifer was glad that was the truth, because if it wasn’t, that would have been the greatest temptation in the world to tell his first lie. 

Chloe sighed with relief this time and nodded gratefully at him. “Thank you, Lucifer.” She knew that one of her grandsons had arrived in heaven before she left, but her other grandson and granddaughter hadn’t been seen yet, so she had to be sure.


	8. Chapter 8

As they were walking back to the center area, Lucifer could feel Chloe’s strength starting to wane, whether from grief or exhaustion he wasn’t sure, but decided to skip the rest for now. They could get back to it later. Instead he led her back to their rooms. Once they were inside, she crumbled and the tears finally fell freely from her eyes. Lucifer helped her to the bed to sit down and knelt in front of her. “I’m sorry, detective,” he said sadly. “I told you this wasn’t a pleasant place. I can always try and make a deal of sorts with my father. Get you back…”

“No!” she snapped, wiping her tears and trying to put herself together. “I meant everything I said before Lucifer. I can’t go back to a place where you aren’t. I /won’t/. As long as I have you, I can deal with the rest. It’s just going to take a little getting used to.” 

“I shouldn’t have showed you all that so soon. I should have introduced you more gently…”

“No, you did the right thing Lucifer. I can’t be coddled here. You know that. I even get why you showed me Greg and everything he did to my daughter and grandkids, though I appreciate you not sharing details.”

“You do?” he asked concerned, hoping that she actually did get it and didn’t think it was some deliberate cruelty on his part. 

“Yes. I know I’m a little too idealistic for this place normally and I intend to work on that. I would have protested the treatment he got for anyone else, but knowing that it was my family he hurt like that changed things, though it shouldn’t. You mentioned the big picture before and I get it now. Every victim is someone’s child, grandchild, sibling, something. Now that we’re dealing with the big picture like this, I can’t discriminate like that,” she explained. 

Lucifer gave her a sad smile. She really did get it, though he hadn’t realized that she didn’t know what he had done before. “I know how hard it was for me to go from seeing the big picture to putting the little pieces together. It helped to put myself in the situation and consider things from that angle. I hoped the same thing would help you too.”

“That’s why you always made every case about you?” she asked incredulously. When he nodded, she smacked him on the arm. “Why didn’t you ever just tell me that then?” 

Lucifer’s lips twitched in an amusement, like he was trying to hold back a smirk. “Are you sure you want the answer to that?” 

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said warily, worried now about what it was, but judging by the fact that he seemed amused rather than scared, worried, or sad, she didn’t think it would be too bad. 

“You’re adorable when you’re irritated,” he admitted. 

“I…you…but…you…UGH!” she stammered before she started hitting him repeatedly on the arms and chest. Not hard enough to hurt even if she could hurt him, and more from playfulness than anger. 

Lucifer laughed and stole a quick kiss before jumping away from her. “Just like that,” he added, vaulting over the bed when she got up to chase him. 

“I’m gonna get you for that, Lucifer,” she yelled through her own laughter as she chased him through the room. 

After a minute he got tired of the game and let her catch him, but just swept her up into a kiss when she did. After it was over, she leaned into him, breathing heavily, partly from the running and partly from the kiss, and laughing slightly. “Thank you, Lucifer. I needed that.” 

“I aim to please, darling,” he drawled. “In /every/ way,” he added suggestively. 

She looked up at him with a grin. “I very much look forward to the in person demonstration in a few days,” she teased and stole a quick kiss before darting out of his arms. His barking laugh followed her as she went to sit on the couch and he wasn’t far behind. 

Now that the fun was over, she felt a bit more settled and ready to learn more. She would gladly take the opportunity to soak up his comfort as she did though. “So the whole organization here, how does that work?” she asked as she curled up to his side and relaxed as his arm went around her and pulled her close. 

Maze came in with lunch just as he was answering. “Well if I remember correctly, you mentioned reading Dante yes?”

“Yeah, but you said…” she trailed off, hating the reminder of that time of her life, and hating even more how he acted like it was no big deal. 

“Yes, most of that was completely inaccurate drivel, but the one thing he got right was the nine levels, though that could be because I gave him that little tidbit.”

“And the lady with the dog was the first level and Greg was in the ninth I’m guessing?” 

“No, Greg was in the eighth. I will /never/ take you to the ninth level. /Ever/. Even I only go there every few millennia when I have to.” 

“Is it really that bad?” she asked. If even he avoided it, she wasn’t going to throw a fuss about not being allowed there, but she wanted at least a little bit of information. 

“I mentioned the tyrant wing. That’s where it is. That’s where all the genocidal maniacs end up. Hitler, Stalin, Gengis Khan, etc. The demons have free rein in that level. Level 8 is for the garden variety serial killers, some terrorists, serial child molestors, and so on. Greg technically should be in level 7 since he only abused a few children, but I made an exception for him so that the demons could have a bit more freedom. On level 8 they have some access. Level 7 they have limited access. That’s where most terrorists are as well as other unrepentant killers who aren’t quite bad enough for 8.”

“I would think that all the terrorists would be on 8,” Chloe said curiously. 

“Most terrorists fully believe that they have some higher calling and divine purpose. It mitigates things somewhat. The ones on 8 have no remorse and no deeply held beliefs that make them think they are doing the right thing.”

“That makes sense,” she said with a nod. It seemed intentions did count for something, though apparently not too much if it only moved them up one level. 

“Moving on, level 6 the demons only enter by my invitation, and yours now, and then very rarely. That’s where most of the organized crime bosses, drug kingpins, and the like end up. They don’t personally kill very often, but they are the cause of a lot of it.”

“So Marcus…I mean, Cain…”

“Was also a special exception, and not /only/ because it was you he tried to hurt. Being thousands of years old, he had a lot more blood on his hands than the average crime boss. He’s in level 8. Couldn’t quite manage to justify throwing him in level 9 unfortunately.” 

Chloe nodded, and motioned him to continue. “And level 5?” 

“Also invitation only for the demons, and that’s where a lot of the criminal enforcers end up. While they do kill, they don’t do it for no reason like the ones on seven. They do it for reasons of loyalty, or business or such and on orders from their bosses. Level four is the first level that demons never enter and hold people like those guilty of more serious assaults without extenuating circumstances, and those who accidentally kill people in those assaults. Level 3 is where the suicides end up as well as those who hurt people due to drug and alcohol issues. While the actions they take under the influence aren’t /completely/ their fault, being under the influence in the first place is.”

“So like DUIs where someone was seriously hurt or killed and hit and runs and stuff?” 

“Precisely. Now if it’s a one time thing and the person never did it again after realizing how they were affected by those things, they end up on level 2 since that’s more negligence than anything else. Also on level two is people who hurt others, but not seriously, due to greed, drugs, or alcohol or people who hurt other people seriously through negligence but not intent. Things like getting into a shoving match with your buddy and he falls and hits his head and dies or something.”

“I wouldn’t think real accidents would be that bad?” Chloe asked. 

“A true accident isn’t. But shoving someone around when there are things around that can cause that is just reckless. If you bumped into someone and they fell and died, that’s a true accident,” Lucifer explained. 

Chloe nodded. She could understand that. She still thought it was a little harsh, but then everything here was. If someone could end up here because of their guilt from putting a pet down, then obviously the system was flawed, as Lucifer had said. “So level 1 is the people who don’t deserve to be here at all?” 

“Yes. The ones with misplaced guilt. Those who are guilty of lust, but never hurt anyone, though I do make some exceptions there. I don’t think someone who broke up a marriage or something similar deserves to be on level 2 when the cheating partner is the one who really did something wrong.”

“So you can at least mitigate some of the damage when people get things they don’t deserve?” Chloe asked. She wasn’t at all surprised that he didn’t consider lust to be that much of a sin, and despite being a bit of a prude herself, she couldn’t help but agree with him. If it wasn’t hurting anyone, who cared?

“To a degree, yes. Not much changes between the levels, but the loops are less intense, and I have more control over modifying them on the lower numbered levels,” he explained.


	9. Chapter 9

“Does that mean you go over every person that comes here personally?” she asked, not even able to comprehend how much work that must be. Then again, even on his ‘vacation’ he worked two jobs. Running a nightclub and police consultant, so she wouldn’t be surprised if he was used to constant work. 

“More or less,” he said with a shrug. When he realized that she was done with her lunch, he asked, “If you’re ready to continue the tour, I’ll show you the office and administration area.” 

She nodded and got up, taking a moment to put her ‘public mask’ back on before she took his arm. She wondered why they walked through the public areas when she was sure that he had a private access, but Lucifer explained that he wanted the demons to get used to seeing her, and for her to see more of the area. During the journey, she greeted the demons she came across politely, but distantly. She just couldn’t pull off the cold demeanor that Lucifer wore around them. 

Once she stepped into the office her jaw dropped. “What the…”

“Yes…well…it has been rather piling up for the last couple weeks,” he said sheepishly. “Now you see why I never wanted to help you with your ‘boring paperwork’.”

“Yeah, I definitely get it now. It reminded you too much of Hell,” she said not sure whether to laugh or cry. 

“Yes, sometimes when looking at this I wonder if the fact that time moves much slower here might have been Dad doing me a bit of a favor, but then I remember that it’s Dad and he doesn’t do favors. Not for me.”

“So this is two weeks worth?” she asked eyeing the stacks of files piled on the desk.

“Well, somewhere around two hundred thousand people die every day on Earth and roughly half of them end up here. Now a day up there is a month here, so that does give me a bit of time to keep ahead of things,” he explained. 

“And now you have some help keeping ahead of things,” she told him. She definitely wasn’t going to stick him with all the work now that she could help. So what if he’d done it to her. He had apparently been handling all this himself for millennia. She couldn’t really blame him. 

He smiled brightly at her. “That would be much appreciated, but not strictly necessary if you don’t want to.” 

“I do want to,” she told him. “I’ve never minded paperwork.” She looked around the room and said, “I wouldn’t mind my own desk though. Or making yours a little bigger.” 

He chuckled. “I’ll get Maze on that right away.” 

She grinned. “So these filing cabinets…” she walked over to the first one and opened it. She was dying to see his filing system after what he had done to hers that time. She burst into laughter when she saw it. Sure enough, there was a boring section and a sexy section, along with others. 

“They are separated by decades and level,” he told her, knowing that she would need to know the system if she was going to be helping. “There are three filing cabinets for most levels, but only one for level 9. Every hundred earth years they are boxed up and moved into storage through there.” He pointed at a door at the back of the room. 

It was sheer curiosity that had her opening the door to see what the storage looked like. She could have imagined how massive it would be given the entire history of the world, but imagination couldn’t have prepared her for what she saw. She stood there gaping like a fish for a long while before a chuckling Lucifer pulled her away. “You won’t have to worry about that, darling. All that is done by the demons. We just have to worry about the initial filing and sorting.” 

“Makes sense that demons wouldn’t be able to do that for you.”

“Yes, quite. Everyone would end up on level 9 just so that they could play,” he replied amusedly. She wasn’t quite far enough along in her acceptance that she could laugh at that, but she did find some amusement in it at least and she would get there. She didn’t fault Lucifer for finding the little bit of fun he could though. He’d had much longer to build up a thick skin. She could see what he meant now about it just being a job. With a few exceptions, he certainly didn’t seem to enjoy the torture aspect. 

“Should we just dig in then?” she asked, heading for the desk, but his hand on her arm stopped her. 

“Not today, darling,” he drawled. “We can give you a few days to settle in first. Keeping order with the demons and getting them used to seeing you is more important.”

“What happens to these people before you get to them?” she asked curiously, wondering why he prioritized the way he did.

“They are automatically sorted as they arrive, so for the vast majority of them, nothing will change. The few that need to be shuffled around will keep,” he told her. 

“But then some people get worse than they deserve for a while,” she pointed out. 

“And some people get better than they deserve, but that just makes it hit that much harder, both ways, when they get moved.”

“So all that time you were on earth…”

“The automatic sorting was in place. Took me forever to catch up once I got back though,” he said with a sigh. 

Chloe couldn’t help but chuckle. If this was two weeks, she could just imagine ten years. Or actually it would be more like a few hundred years by hell time. She shook her head, not wanting to think about how hard that would have been. Especially since he was trying to reassert himself with the demons at the same time. Speaking of… “Whatever happened to the demons that came to earth that time?” She hoped they suffered. They had taken him away from her. 

“It turned out that most of them had no idea it was an attempted rebellion. Most of the ones that came in after the fact and overwhelmed us, in fact. They thought Dromos, Squee, and Mardes were following my orders until I ordered them to leave. They got relatively minor punishments. The ones who knew were killed except the three ring leaders. They were sentences to ten thousand years public torture before their deaths, hanging in the square,” he told her. 

“I didn’t see them,” she furrowed her brows, hoping that it wasn’t another example of him trying to hide the bad from her. 

Lucifer gave her a sheepish shrug, but before she could jump to conclusions and open up on him, he started explaining. “I rather accidentally gave them an early pardon?” 

“Huh?” she asked, confused now. 

“When I got the prayer from the urchin about your…demise…I might have lost my temper a bit,” he shrugged. 

“Why?” she asked. “I mean, you weren’t with me anyway and you said you wanted me in heaven…”

Lucifer sighed and sat down in his chair, pulling her into his lap. “Because as long as you were alive on earth, there was a chance, however slim, that I might see you again someday. That I might get a chance to be with you, even for just a little while. Once you were in heaven though…”

Chloe smiled sadly and reached a hand to his cheek. “I understand,” she said. “I have to wonder…did you check to see if I was here?” 

“I knew you wouldn’t be, but yes, of course I checked anyway. I wasn’t going to risk you being trapped in one of those cells if I was wrong,” Lucifer told her. 

“And what could you have done if I was? I wouldn’t have had the throne to protect me out here.”

Lucifer looked away. He hated thinking about this, but he needed her to know that he would never have let her rot like that. No matter what. “I would have taken you out anyway and assigned Maze to be your tail on the rare moments I couldn’t keep you in my sight. You would have essentially been a prisoner anyway for your own safety, but it still would have been better than…that.” 

Chloe smiled and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. She would have been able to live with that, and it wasn’t that much different from now. She still had Maze as a bodyguard anyway. She just would have been fighting a lot more in the process. “Thank you, Lucifer,” she whispered and he smiled brightly at her as he cupped her cheek. Before anything else could be said though the door crashed open and he shoved her off his lap as he stood, plastering his mask back on. Chloe just hoped that hers came up quick enough as Maze followed two other demons in the room. 

“My lord, my lady,” one of the demons bowed. “You should come quickly.” 

Lucifer reached over and tucked Chloe’s hand in his arm before walking briskly from the room, barely slowing enough for her to keep up. If he was being told to come quickly, he knew that they meant it. Maze might exaggerate from time to time, but the rest of them were too afraid of him to risk wasting his time.


	10. Chapter 10

They followed the demon into what seemed to Chloe like a run down bar and she soon realized that was essentially what it was. Lucifer pulled them into the shadows at the back for the moment. He wanted an idea of what was going on here before he made himself known. It didn’t take long at all before he realized that Pruflas was at the front preaching to a group of demons about how weak the new queen was and how if they didn’t do something she would corrupt their king with her weakness. 

Lucifer had heard enough and stepped out of the shadows. “Is that so,” he drawled menacingly. 

“M-my lord,” he stammered, eyes going wide with fear as the crowd in front of him parted like the red sea. 

Part of Chloe wanted nothing more than to run away from this as far and as fast as she could, but she knew that she couldn’t. Not without risking a rebellion that would destroy them all and almost certainly spread to the earth and destroy that too. She had worked so hard to get to hell. To be with Lucifer. She hadn’t exactly wanted to be his queen, but it was part of the package. This had been her choice and she had to step up and accept it. This was her big test. As Lucifer began walking the impromptu aisle she stepped up beside him, placing her hand in his arm, both to call him down and to give herself the strength. She couldn’t let him fight her battles and this one was about her. That meant she had to handle it. 

She felt Lucifer hesitate as he looked at her, worry only showing in his eyes, while the rest of his face showed the same cold mask as usual. She set her jaw and nodded slightly at him which he returned. He still escorted her to the front, but stood back and let her handle it. During the walk she considered what she could do. Lucifer had threatened to cut out his tongue before, but he had said that they would have expected more and this was a far greater transgression than even that had been. She was glad that the normal punishments for the demons had been gone over in the few days that she was awake and recuperating. That at least gave her some idea of what would be expected. She also remembered what Lucifer had told her about if she wanted to be kind then she would have to be even more ruthless when it was called for. 

She had hoped that she would get a little longer to get used to the idea before being called into action, but there was nothing for it now. It was just like when Trixie was a toddler. The stronger she was from the start the less of a problem she would have in the future. It did help that this was apparently a frequent troublemaker. Once they were to the front she was decided. She just hoped that she would be able to go through with it without betraying the weakness they were accusing her of. She couldn’t bring herself to choke him like Lucifer had…if she would even have the strength to not being an angel or a demon so she just stepped right into his space as he fell to his knees. “You think I’m weak, do you?” He just stammered a bit, looking between her and Lucifer in fear so she bellowed, “ANSWER ME!” in her commanding voice that had worked so well on Maze. 

“Y-yes,” was pulled unwillingly from the demon’s throat. 

“Then I guess we’ll have to teach you better, then won’t we,” she said in a passable imitation of a menacing voice. “You and you,” she pointed to two random demons in the front. “Throw him in the fire pools and leave him to claw his own way out.” 

“Yes, my lady,” the both said without hesitation and each grabbed one of his arms. 

“No! Please! I’m sorry! Please my lady! You’re not weak! I’m sorry!” Pruflas cried as he was dragged out. 

Only Lucifer’s steadying hand on her arm and the warning in his eyes kept her from caving to his begging. She swallowed heavily a few times and took a deep breath before turning back to face the crowd. “Do not mistake my kindness for weakness,” she hissed. “Does anyone else wish to question me?” 

When she got a chorus of, “No, my lady,” she spun on her heel, only waiting for Lucifer to come to her side before they began to stride out. 

Lucifer knew that the tour was over for the day and immediately led her by the shortest route back to their rooms. He was proud of her that she made it inside and behind closed doors before more than her hand in his arm started to shake. He eased her over to the bed and sat her down, taking both of her hands in his and rubbing them encouragingly. “Are you alright, darling?” he asked gently. 

“I…I will be,” she replied shakily. “D-did I do okay?” 

Lucifer smiled proudly at her as he continued his almost massage up her shaking arms. “You did just fine, detective,” he assured her. “Though perhaps next time specify which pool to throw him in. Some of them are rather small and shallow. Judging by the look of adoration on the faces of the two you sent, I doubt they would let him off that easy though.” 

“Not a chance,” Maze chimed in. “Those two would be more likely to throw him in the deepest hottest pool out there.”

“What /is/ the talk of their new queen?” Lucifer asked Maze, knowing that they didn’t censor themselves around her the way they did him and knowing that she would have taken every opportunity while she wasn’t needed by their sides to scope out the situation. 

“Prior to this incident, it’s been mostly neutral. Some of the demons are ecstatic to have a queen now and more than willing to shower her with devotion. I heard one of them mention their hopes that she will cool your temper a bit,” she laughed, pulling a laugh from Chloe and a smirk from Lucifer. “Most of them though haven’t been quite sure what to think and seemed to be reserving judgement.”

“Maze, would you…” Chloe trailed off, motioning to the door, desperately needing to know what this incident had done to her reputation. 

“Of course, my queen,” she said with a slight playfully mocking tone, but mostly respect in her voice as she bowed and headed out. 

Once they were alone again, Chloe asked Lucifer, “It won’t kill him, will it?” 

“No, dearest,” Lucifer assured her. “The only way to kill a demon is with a hell-forged blade to the heart, beheading, or well…exploding as Dromos, Squee, and Mardos found out the hard way,” he chuckled. “And since you didn’t forbid it, once he does get out he will be treated with ointments the same way you were.” 

“Okay, good,” she sighed with relief. She had been almost sure of that before she called for the punishment, but the deepest hottest pit part had made her wonder. 

“I would like to point out though, detective, that you would have been well within your rights to call for his death,” he told her. 

“Maybe, but I don’t intend to go there unless I have no choice,” she told him, not wanting to budge on this one last sticking point. 

“Understandable. If he steps one more toe out of line though, /I/ will call for his head. He has been pushing boundaries since my return, so this is his last chance,” Lucifer said firmly. 

“And I won’t try to stop you,” she promised. Just because she couldn’t bring herself to order someone’s death didn’t mean that she would fault him for doing so, and if this demon had been causing trouble for that long, she knew that he was rapidly reaching the point where he had no choice either. 

They spent the next few hours in easy conversation, avoiding any difficult subjects, until Maze returned with dinner and a report. “You will be glad to know that the reactions to their queen are now overwhelmingly positive. Word of everything that happened, from your kindness earlier to your wrath at the gathering have spread, and the majority of the demons I saw are overflowing with devotion and the rest aren’t far from it.”

Chloe sighed with relief. “Good. That means I hopefully won’t have to repeat that message very often.” 

“That is a hope, but be sure that you don’t get complacent darling. That’s the worst thing you can do with demons. They can turn on a dime if they see a reason to,” Lucifer warned her. 

“He’s right,” Maze agreed. “You’ll still need to be careful, but as long as you are, they should be under control now.” Chloe nodded in acceptance. It made sense. Just like with children. Give them an inch and they take a mile. She would still have to be careful not to give that inch.


	11. Chapter 11

That night, Chloe once again fell asleep in Lucifer’s arms and was finally starting to believe that this wasn’t a dream. That this was really hers to keep. When she woke up the next morning with nothing but mild discomfort, she knew that she was done waiting. Mostly. She still intended to wait for tonight so that there would be less chance of interruption. She was awake first and snuggled closer to Lucifer’s warmth, tracing random patterns on his bare chest as he slept on. As she lay there, she thought about life here and what it had to offer, other than the wonderful man laying next to her and the best friend she had back. 

She wished they had a little more than this one room where they could let their guards down though. Well, there was Maze’s connected room too, but she hadn’t been in there. A living room would be nice though. With a piano. She missed music. A stereo would be nice too, but she didn’t know where they would get music for it. A dining area to eat in, even if a kitchen would be useless. Just something more than this one room. She was pulled from her thoughts by a rumbling sound and the room just barely shaking, which woke Lucifer too. 

His eyes snapped open and he looked at her nervously before closing them again in concentration for a moment. When they opened again he couldn’t help but chuckle. “Feeling a little cooped up, darling?” he asked amusedly. 

“Wh-what do you mean? What was that?” she asked worriedly. 

He laughed, and shook his head, getting out of bed and pulling a robe on, before helping her up and into a robe as well. “Let’s go see shall we?” 

His mood relaxed her quite a bit. It couldn’t have been bad if he was so chipper about it, so she pulled the robe on and followed him through another door that she hadn’t seen before and stopped in the doorway with a gasp. It was exactly what she’d been imagining. A nice big living room with a piano to one side and an eating nook to the other. Even the paintings on the walls. “H-how…”

“I told you, detective, you have nearly as much control over this dimension as I do now,” he said, still snickering at the look on her face. 

“Then why did you never…I mean, if it was so easy…” she was confused as to why he never expanded beyond the one room. 

“There was never a point,” he said, a hint of sadness creeping into his voice. “What would I have done with all of this alone?” He had no problem playing the piano just for himself on earth, but down here it was just a reminder that himself was all he had. The rare interactions he’d had with the demons had been more of the bedroom variety so that was all he had. 

Chloe got it rather quickly, and reached out to thread her fingers with his as she leaned her head on his shoulder. “You’re not alone anymore,” she whispered and smiled when she felt him turn to kiss her head. 

“No, I’m not,” he said with a feeling of warmth that he’d been missing since he left earth. “There’s just one more thing missing,” he said with a grin and closed his eyes. 

“What…” Chloe trailed off and watched in awe as the room expanded to give them a small swimming pool at the back. “No hot tub?” she teased when it was finished. 

“This is hell, darling. The last thing we need is more heat,” he joked. 

She laughed and shook her head. She couldn’t argue with that. Before she could say anything else, Maze wandered in, slightly confused, with a tray of food. As she looked around, she couldn’t help but grin. “Nice,” she said as she went over and sat the food on the new table and plopped down in one of the chairs. 

“Would everyone have noticed?” Chloe asked, slightly concerned. 

“Everyone nearby,” Maze told her. 

“Will it cause any problems?” she asked, now more than a little concerned. 

“Not at all, detective,” Lucifer assured her. “They will not fault their queen for wanting a space of her own.”

She sighed relieved, but decided to finally bring up something that had been…not exactly bothering her, but definitely not feeling quite right. “You realize that I’m not a detective anymore, right? I haven’t been for a long time.” 

Lucifer tilted his head at her. Obviously he knew that, but he was figuring out that she didn’t want to be called that anymore. “Naturally. But that was a big part of who you were,” he pointed out. 

“Who I /was/,” she said pointedly. “Since then I’ve spent a hundred years in heaven and trying to spring a jailbreak and starting rebellions, and now I’m the queen of hell.”

Lucifer considered that for a moment before nodding. “Very well, det…darling. I won’t call you that anymore if you wish. Is there anything else you want me to call you?” 

Chloe chuckled and plopped down on his lap at the table as she started grabbing some food. “Darling and dearest are nice, but I’d like to be called by my name sometimes too,” she teased. 

“Of course, Chloe,” Lucifer chuckled. 

Now that was settled, Maze had a question that had been bugging her for a week now. “So since you brought it up again…tell me about your rebellion in heaven,” she asked eagerly. 

Chloe laughed. “It was really lame, but I’ll tell you mine if Lucifer tells me his,” she looked at him questioningly and Lucifer rolled his eyes and nodded, despite knowing that his story was less lame and more tragic. At his agreement Chloe began her story. “Well once I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to escape on my own and had the idea for a rebellion, I knew that there wasn’t much we could do. I mean, human souls against angels? We would have been slaughtered in a fight.”

“That’s an understatement,” Lucifer muttered. 

She just ignored him and continued. “All we could do is try to annoy the crap out of them, so I gathered up as many people as I could get on my side and after a bit of planning, we all escaped at once. We knew they would be looking towards the exits to catch us there just like they had every time I’d tried to get out, but instead we made our way towards the city. We all split up, of course, so we wouldn’t be spotted as easily and I’m pretty sure some of us got caught before we got there, but there was still a pretty big group when we got to the meeting point outside the big castle. Once we were there, we just stood outside yelling, ‘No way! We won’t stay!’ for a while before the angels came and started breaking us up. It took a few times of doing that before they had enough and everyone quickly pointed the finger at me as the ringleader.”

“That’s loyalty for you,” Lucifer interjected irritated. 

Chloe laughed. “Only because they knew that’s what I wanted, love. I can’t say whether they would have kept quiet otherwise or not, but they didn’t need to since they knew what my goal was. Then I got dragged in and thrown down here. The landing could have been a little nicer though,” she joked. 

Maze laughed at the story. “Leave it to you Decker to annoy the big guy so much he kicks you out.” 

Chloe grinned. “Well it worked didn’t it.” She turned to Lucifer. “Okay, your turn.”

Lucifer snorted. “I’m afraid my story isn’t nearly as tame as yours, though it probably has something to do with why my father reacted so strongly to your attempt since it starts similarly. Though we didn’t have the amusing and unoriginal catch phrase,” he teased. 

Chloe just shrugged sheepishly. “It seemed fitting.” 

“I liked it,” Maze chimed in, getting a grin from Chloe for that. 

“Well, like you, my brothers and sisters that were with me wanted out. We wanted freedom, that he refused to give us, so we marched on the castle. We had full armor and weapons, not because we intended to use them. We didn’t. We just thought it made a more impressive sight and added some weight to our demands. I was particularly adamant that no one be hurt, but it didn’t turn out that way. To this day, I don’t know who started it or how it started, but a fight broke out in the middle of the throne room and by the time my father arrived and managed to break it up, one of my brothers was dead and many more were injured.”

“Oh, Lucifer,” Chloe said sadly and leaned her head on his shoulder. She knew how much that would have affected him. Especially after Linda had eventually spilled the beans about Uriel and how he’d killed him to protect her and how much it tore him apart. “I’m so sorry.”

Lucifer tightened his arm around her as he continued. “Once everyone got a look at the carnage, my side all but disappeared, leaving me holding all the blame. Never once did I use my weapon for anything more than blocking others, but to hear the stories that came from that, I walked in, sword blazing, and started mowing people down for no reason with the intent of killing my father and taking over heaven for myself. My side of the story was never even heard, and I was just thrown down here.” 

Maze frowned. She had never heard this story before, and she was glad she didn’t or she would have torn every angel she could limb from limb. Judging from the look on Chloe’s face, she wouldn’t have been alone either. Neither of them knew what to say though, so Chloe just hugged him tightly in support, running her free hand through his hair, while Maze gave him a supportive look as she fingered her blades wishing she had something to kill right now. Lucifer couldn’t help the warmth that filled him at their complete acceptance of him, and he felt some of the burden he’d carried all these years start to ease.


	12. Chapter 12

Once they finished breakfast, Chloe convinced Lucifer to play the piano for a little while. “I miss music,” she told him. “I thought of a stereo too, but I don’t see one.”

Lucifer chuckled. “Not even we can give hell electricity, darling, but I would be happy to play for you anytime.”

“Maybe, since we have eternity and all, you might make some progress teaching me to play too,” she joked. 

“It might just take that long,” he teased her and laughed when she smacked him for it. 

“I’ll be outside the main doors if you need me,” Maze said making her escape before they could get all mushy again. She didn’t begrudge either of them their love, but that didn’t mean she wanted to stick around and watch. 

Chloe knew they couldn’t just stick around inside all day. She knew there was more still that she needed to see, especially if she wanted to spend the night enjoying him, so she only asked him to play a few songs for now. It was enough to lift both their moods greatly. Lucifer took a moment to shift their dwelling around so that the door to the outside was in this room now instead of the bedroom before he opened the door and called both Maze and Moloch in, grabbing Agares to be the second door guard. 

Once both demons were inside, Lucifer and Chloe sat on the couch, leaving them standing as was proper. “Moloch, Mazikeen will be the queen’s guard from this point on, therefore you will become mine. You rooms will be moved to the opposite side of these, but Mazikeen will remain our servant within these rooms. You will not enter unless invited. When you are on duty, you will be outside these doors with the guards. Understood?” 

“Perfectly, my lord,” Moloch said with a bow. 

“Excellent. And know this, should you ever speak of anything you see or hear with us in the course of your duties, I will cut out your tongue and abandon you in the wastelands for the rest of eternity.” 

“I will keep your secrets as my own, my lord,” he promised, the only sign of fear from the threat being a momentary widening of his eyes.

“Good,” Lucifer said before turning to Chloe. “Come, my queen. I shall show you to the upper thrones today so that you may look upon your kingdom.” 

“Thank you, my king,” Chloe said formally, taking his hand and letting him help her up. The walk to the thrones was spent in mostly silence and both of their bodyguards waited at the bottom as Lucifer took her in his arms and flew up. “I’m sure glad we didn’t take the stairs,” Chloe joked as she looked down. 

Lucifer laughed. “Only we and our bodyguards can get up here without the stairs. It’s so that the demons think twice about bothering me over trivial things when I’m up here.” 

“I would imagine it’s very effective. I’m guessing we can speak freely up here?” she asked. 

“No one can hear us this high up, but they can still see us, so we can’t completely relax,” Lucifer told her. “We can also relax a little more around Moloch. As my bodyguard we have to be able to trust him to some degree, and Maze wouldn’t have suggested him if he wasn’t completely loyal.”

“I’ll follow your lead then,” she told him as she sat down in the throne next to his, glad that they had fused together to share an armrest, but also glad that they had the armrest between them. Otherwise it would be too tempting to cuddle up to him. That didn’t stop her from holding his hand though as she looked around. “It’s a good thing I’m not afraid of heights.”

“A very good thing, dearest,” Lucifer chuckled. 

Chloe took a moment to look around and just take everything in and Lucifer just watched her reactions. She saw in front of her the cells stretched out as far as the eye could see and for a good distance to the sides as well. Directly below her was what she was calling the town, not that it bore a lot of resemblance to one, but that was the best term she could think of. Far to her right beyond the cells she could see the thicker smoke in the air and fire shooting up at random points. “That’s the magma pools?” she guessed and Lucifer nodded. “What’s past that?”

“Past that is the wastelands. The ash is even thicker in the air there than here. So much so that you can barely breathe and the heat is much more intense too. It’s so dry that the sand is hardened and filled with cracks and hot enough to burn anything it touches. Once you enter the wastelands, unless you can fly like me, you’re lost in it. It’s all you can see in any direction.”

“And that’s why it’s such a good punishment,” Chloe nodded. 

“Precisely. Only I can rescue someone from there and they know that if I throw them there, I won’t be inclined to come get them anytime soon.” 

Chloe continued her perusal and noticed the open space between the cells and the heavy iron and stone gates. “What’s that empty space for?” she asked curiously. 

“Nothing really,” Lucifer shrugged. “It’s mostly just open so that no one can make a run for the gates without being seen. Not that they could get them open anyway.” 

Chloe then turned to look behind her and saw nothing else but cells as far as the eye could see. “So there’s nothing else here?” 

“Nothing else,” he told her. 

“Well where does the food come from and the ointments and stuff?” she asked curiously. 

“This is hell, dearest. Nothing grows here except a particularly resilient moss. That’s where the ointment comes from. The food comes from the storerooms I created to automatically refill themselves when anything gets emptied.”

“What about before you got here? Maze said there were about a hundred of them then. What did they eat?” she asked. 

Lucifer grimaced. “You really don’t want to know.”

It only took a minute for Chloe to get it and she gagged a bit before she bit it back. “There had been more than a hundred of them born wasn’t there?” Lucifer just nodded and she shook her head to clear the images. He was right. She really didn’t want to know. “So you saved them from that?” 

“Yes, though truthfully it was as much for my benefit as theirs. I gave them all the food they could ask for, and shelters to live in and in return they moderated their behavior somewhat and obeyed me.”

“They have no problem with you creating the food, but you can’t get your own?” she asked amusedly. 

Lucifer chuckled. “There aren’t so many of them left from that long ago and even they probably don’t think about where the food comes from anymore. Their dogma does say that it’s gifted from me, but they don’t know how. They probably wouldn’t understand it even if I explained it, but basically they believe that if they continue to serve and obey me, they will be permitted to eat, drink, and live here as they wish.”

“And they’re not exactly wrong given what happens when they don’t obey you,” Chloe pointed out. 

“Very true, darling, though I could live without being served quite so much.” 

“That’s why you enjoyed cooking so much on earth,” she figured out. 

“Precisely,” he told her. “It was nice to be able to do things for myself for a change.” 

She was definitely understanding the appeal that earth held for him. She had always thought it was just because it wasn’t as miserable as hell, and that was probably part of it, but it was so much more than that too. He could be himself up there in a way that he couldn’t here. He could let loose and have fun and mingle with people. He could allow himself to be weak and vulnerable. He didn’t have to keep such tight control over himself and his surroundings all the time. She wished more than anything that she could give him some part of that back. 

They sat up there talking about different things until Maze teleported up with some lunch, and after they ate, Lucifer flew them down so that they could spend the afternoon in the throne room. He told her that he usually tried to spend some time in there at least once a week to handle any issues that came up and keep himself visible. He hadn’t done so since her arrival though other than their brief visit the day before. 

Their conversation was much more distant and stilted, being right in the thick of things, and often interrupted by usually petty issues. Lucifer explained to her though that when he was in here and not making an announcement it was the one time the demons were permitted to approach him with those sorts of things. It was something of a compromise for them to feel that their king listened and for him to not be bothered the rest of the time for ridiculous things. She could see that every small attention he paid to them just increased their loyalty, so it was far from a waste of time. The more loyal they were, the less likely they were to cause trouble here or on earth.


	13. Chapter 13

They headed back to their rooms for dinner, and once Maze brought it and they all sat down to eat, Chloe brought up something that she had been considering all day. “I’ve been thinking and we don’t have to do the whole wedding vows type thing.” 

“Why not? I thought that’s what you wanted?” Lucifer asked confused. 

“What I wanted was to marry you, Lucifer, but that’s not really possible here. If there’s no such thing as marriage then it won’t really mean anything to anyone but us and if no one else can even be there other than Maze, and I’m sure she doesn’t really care to witness something like that anyway.”

“Not particularly,” Maze muttered around her food. 

“But it would still mean something to you,” Lucifer pointed out. 

Chloe smiled and took his hand. “I know how much you love me, Lucifer. I don’t need the grand gesture. And I hope you know how much I love you too…”

“Of course, I do dearest. The fact that you’re here at all is more than enough proof of that fact.”

“Then what’s the point?” 

“To make you happy,” Lucifer said as though it should be obvious.

Chloe chuckled at that. To him that really was the point of any wedding they might have. Everything he did was to make her happy and that was all that mattered. “I /am/ happy, Lucifer. Just being here with you is more than enough. There’s nothing here to make legal with it, and we can make promises to each other and tell each other how we feel anytime. There doesn’t need to be some grand ceremony to it.”

“If you’re sure, darling, but if you ever change your mind…”

“I’ll let you know,” she promised. 

Lucifer watched her for a moment to make sure that he didn’t see any signs of disappointment before he just grinned. “Does that mean we can skip straight to the consummation part?” he joked. 

Chloe grinned back. “I’ve been wanting that part for a century and a half now.” 

“That part I don’t mind witnessing,” Maze jumped in. 

“Maze,” Lucifer said in a warning tone. 

“Yeah, yeah. I know,” she mostly joked, as she popped the last bit of her dinner in her mouth and headed out. “Later.” 

Before Lucifer could take her to the bedroom, Chloe had another question that had just popped into her head. “My being here isn’t…displacing anyone else is it?” 

“What do you mean?” Lucifer asked confused. 

“Well, I mean, you’ve been here alone for what? Thousands of years? I don’t expect you to have been celibate all that time.”

“And I wasn’t, but displacing someone, as you say, would mean that there is someone in particular to displace. I’ve had plenty of demons in my bed, but none of them could even come close to reaching my heart the way you do,” Lucifer assured her. 

“Even Maze?” she asked.

Lucifer snorted. “Maze would perhaps come the closest, but that’s not saying much. Even when she started developing feelings, she never felt anything like that for me, nor I for her. She has been my most frequent lover over the years, but that’s simply a matter of proximity and the fact that she’s one of the few who I would trust not to stab me in the back the moment I let my guard down. She’s shared many a bed in that time, and not just mine. I assure you, dearest, you are stepping on no toes here.” 

“She just seemed kind of disappointed,” Chloe said with a shrug. 

Lucifer laughed. “That’s just because she’s Maze. She likes to play and to watch. Perhaps there’s some level of disappointment due to my skills in that area that she won’t be able to enjoy anymore, but it’s certainly no more than that.” 

Chloe was sure that he was right. The disappointment she’d seen in Maze was far more mild than it would have been if she’d had feelings for him, but some part of her still felt like she was intruding. She knew that he loved her though, just as much as she loved him, and she wasn’t going to let anything stand in the way of that. Still, “well I can’t make any promises, but eternity is a long time. I’ll probably be more open to…experimentation…eventually. Just…not yet.” 

“I will never ask it of you, darling, but you know that I would deny you nothing, now or then. You always just have to tell me what it is you desire,” he assured her. 

She smiled brightly at him, knowing that when and if she was ready to open their bed to others that he would be open to it, but glad that he wasn’t going to ask her to do anything. “Right now, all that I desire is you,” she said seductively, pulling him in for a kiss. 

He hummed contentedly into the kiss, pulling her tightly against him so that she could feel just how much he wanted to give her that particular desire. She moaned at the feel of his rapidly approaching erection against her stomach and jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist. He caught her with practiced ease and that was enough to have him rock hard and ready. He carried her into the bedroom, breaking the kiss just long enough to strip her shirt off on the way and she was already undoing the buttons on his. 

It didn’t take long for them both to be completely stripped down in bed, but he didn’t enter her yet. There was something he wanted to do first. That didn’t mean he could bring himself to move away from her either though as he pressed himself tightly against her core and laid some of his weight over top of her. He kissed and sucked down her neck as he said what he needed to say. “I, Lucifer, take you, Chloe, as my wife and queen. I vow to love you…and to cherish you…” his words became more and more choppy as she rolled her hips against him and drug her nails down his back, but he forced himself to continue. “For better or worse…for the rest of eternity,” he finished and finally gave into her silent pleas and the ones of his own body and quickly slid inside her. 

Chloe would have very much liked to return the sentiment, but she was beyond words right now. He was very much not overexaggerating with his bragging about his skills. She wasn’t even sure she remembered English right now, and she was definitely sure that she didn’t care. All that mattered was Lucifer and what he was doing to her as his hands and lips and teeth and tongue roamed over her entire body and the draw of his hips and pulsing length inside her was even better. She had lost count of how many orgasms ripped from her body before she felt him follow her and then collapse on the bed next to her. 

She wasn’t sure how long it was before she managed to figure out how to speak again, but when she did, she rolled over and pressed herself to his side. It took a few minutes for her to pull the memory of exactly what words she used from the mind that had been barely functioning at the time, but when she did, she propped herself up on her elbow and ran her hand down the side of his face until he looked her in the eyes. “I, Chloe Decker, take you, Lucifer Morningstar, as my husband. I vow to love you and to cherish you, for better or worse, for the rest of eternity.” 

She knew the words wouldn’t mean as much to him as they had to her, but the light in his eyes as she said them told her that they definitely meant something. Probably more than he would want to admit. “I love you, Chloe,” he whispered around the lump in his throat. 

“And I love you, Lucifer. Always,” she whispered back as he pulled her down for another long slow kiss. “That was better than any wedding,” she admitted happily when it was over. 

“I’m glad, Chloe. I know that the location leaves a lot to be desired, but I still want to make all of your dreams come through as best I can,” he told her. 

“You already are,” she told him laying back down and resting her head on his chest. “Just by being here.” 

He ran his hand through her hair until she fell asleep, and he wasn’t long behind her, happier than he’d ever been, even on earth or in heaven, and how ironic was it that he was in hell when he found his true happiness.


	14. Chapter 14

The next morning, it was back to work. Chloe started helping Lucifer with the files, Maze had apparently come through with the extra desk and the two desks were now in the center of the room against each other so that Chloe and Lucifer were facing each other as they worked. At least when they didn’t have so many files stacked in front of them that they couldn’t see each other. Lucifer gave Chloe a quick tutorial on how the files were arranged and what needed to be checked in each of them. “What’s this redacted part?” she asked curiously when she looked at the second through fifth pages of the file she had in her hand. 

“That’s absolved sins. We don’t get to see those. Unfortunately we can’t even use the number as a guideline either because they could be as simple as ‘looked lustfully at the pizza delivery man’.”

Chloe huffed. “I’ve always thought that whole absolution thing was a cheat. That was the main reason I was against organized religion.” 

“I know what you mean, dearest, but on a more practical level, I’m rather glad dear old dad started that. I was being overrun with people who did practically nothing wrong. I mean, one guy’s whole great sin was that he ate clams without washing his hands and he got stuck down here. Thankfully in the restructuring, Dad took a lot of those back.” 

Chloe snorted. “I guess when you put it like that…” 

“Remember, when my father is involved, no system is gonna be perfect, and if they’re bad enough, I still get them anyway, absolved or not. There’s just a good portion of the file I can’t read which makes sorting them a pain.” 

“Fair enough,” Chloe admitted and went back to reading. Part of her thought that Lucifer might be being a bit unfair to his father in this, but then her opinion of him was low enough that she didn’t really care. 

For the first few weeks, Chloe didn’t make any decisions herself. She filed the ones she agreed with and set aside any that she thought should be moved for Lucifer to look over. Occasionally he disagreed, but took the time to have a discussion on it to get her views and air his own and all but twice, they had talked themselves to an agreement. Lucifer had the bright idea to take turns making the final decision on the ones that they couldn’t bring themselves to agree on, so one got moved and one didn’t. 

Once the discussions started, Lucifer started setting aside his own ‘to be moved’ pile as well for discussion which was handled the same way. The fact that the rest of the work went twice as fast, meant that they had plenty of time for those discussions. They worked long days for the first few weeks until they were caught up, but once they were, they were able to get away with half days most of the time. They still spent half a day a week in the throne room as well though, so they did have one full workday a week. That was balanced out by the fact that they worked seven days a week though. 

They still had plenty of time to enjoy other aspects of their lives. Lucifer played the piano often and even started teaching Chloe to play, though it was slow going. They spent some time in the pool too, which was kept nice and cold to offset the heat they dealt with constantly. Maze was a frequent visitor and eventual Moloch was too as he got closer to them. He still had no understanding of emotions, but knew the concept of happiness and had no trouble overlooking their ‘weaknesses’ for the sake of his king and queen’s happiness. After a couple decades, he was even given free rein of their living area just as Maze had. 

Chloe got better and better with pushing her idealistic softhearted part aside when needed, though it still broke Lucifer’s heart when she had to punish someone herself. It stopped affecting her as badly though. Thankfully for both of them, she had been right in the beginning when she said that as long as they had each other, they couldn’t lose themselves. In the privacy of their own rooms, she was still the same person she’d always been, and he found shedding that mask in private easier with every passing day. 

By the time she’d been there for fifty years, she was exactly who she needed to be. She didn’t feel the urge to vomit when faced with torture anymore, and could turn a blind eye to the violence and cruelty on display, but she could still never bring herself to participate beyond ordering punishments when necessary and every once in a great while joining in on a hunt for Greg. She never judged Lucifer though for the rare times he was bored enough to participate in such things. She knew that he would never go too far. If there was a such thing as too far in the cases he bothered with. 

When she’d asked, he’d taken her around to all the people she would know from the cases they had worked and she got to see the divine punishments for all of the killers she’d put away. She remembered when she’d asked Ella that time whether what they did even mattered if they would be punished after death anyway. Ella had been right though that their job had just been to keep the world safer. It was the job of hell to do the actual punishing. 

The more she saw and the longer she spent here, the more she started to understand Lucifer and his views on things. That didn’t mean that she completely agreed with him. Not concerning living humans anyway. As long as they were alive, they could still change and turn things around. The redacted files were proof enough of that. Once they were dead though, that was it. Many of the views that she had thought extreme were making more sense the longer she spent here, and she was glad for it. She liked being able to understand him better. 

They had a comfortable routine that wasn’t interrupted until she had been there for about a hundred years, so a little over three years elsewhere. They were sitting in the throne room when two people appeared from nowhere, sending all the demons in the room cowering in the nearest corner. Those who weren’t close enough to the exit that was. Chloe wasn’t able to stop her gasp as she recognized them, and she felt the tightening grip on her hand that told her that Lucifer had recognized them too. One of them at least. “Father,” he ground out. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” The tone of his voice said it was anything but a pleasure though. 

Chloe hadn’t taken her eyes off the other person who appeared though, just drinking in the sight of her, even as god spoke. “I decided to deliver this one personally, along with a warning. This will be the last one that I will bring you. The next soul that attempts a rebellion, human or celestial, will be completely eradicated instead. No matter where they come from,” he glared at his son. 

“What? No throne for me?” Trixie asked cheekily only to wince as the hand on her arm tightened. 

“Careful, child. I can still decide to destroy you,” God hissed angrily. 

Lucifer hadn’t recognized her at first, not having seen her since she was ten years old, but he recognized her voice so when his father made that threat, he wasted no time in breaking the old man’s grip and pulling Trixie behind him, positioning himself in front of Chloe as well. “Over my dead body,” he growled. 

“Be careful, Lucifer. That can be arranged as well,” God said, but then left before things could escalate any further. 

Lucifer let out a heavy breath and moved enough to plop back down on his throne, not caring how undignified he looked at the moment. Chloe also sat back down, knowing that she couldn’t greet her daughter the way she wanted to right now, and the look from her stopped Trixie from saying anything else as well. Lucifer took a few deep breaths to get himself together after that confrontation before standing again and pulling Chloe with him. He knew that he had to address the addition of another human soul, and one without a throne to protect her at that, so he did the only thing he could think of. “This is your Princess Beatrice. Her word is second only to mine and your queen’s. Anyone harming her will suffer the ultimate punishment. Spread the word,” he addressed the only remaining demons. Once they scattered, Lucifer placed Chloe’s hand in one arm and Trixie’s in the other as he led the way back towards their rooms, Maze and Moloch following dutifully.


	15. Chapter 15

Trixie was smart enough to keep quiet during the walk and when she felt everyone relax once they were behind closed doors, she assumed it would be safe for her to do so as well. Before she could decide who to hug first, her mother had claimed her in a crushing hug. It didn’t last long though before she let go and Trixie was free to hug Maze next, who was right behind her mother. “Auntie Maze,” she said hugging her tightly. “I’ve missed you so much.” 

“I missed you too, munchkin,” Maze said, returning the hug. 

Then it was Lucifer’s turn and the devil was nearly bowled over at the ferocity of the hug. A hundred years of loving affection from his wife, combined with the fact that she was no longer a child, made him deal with it much better than he had back on earth though and he returned the hug just as tightly. “Welcome, child,” he said softly as he leaned his head on hers. 

Chloe laughed and decided to tease him a bit. “Oh so I get berated for getting myself sent here, but she just gets a warm welcome?” 

Lucifer took a moment to be sure that she wasn’t actually upset before he let himself chuckle. “Well you’ve managed to prove that it is possible to be happy here despite the fact that it is, in fact, hell, so that rather makes my only objection a moot point doesn’t it?” 

Trixie laughed and shook her head at them. “I’m glad you two finally made it…Dad,” she teased him too. 

Lucifer’s eyes widened. “I don’t know if I would go that far,” he said in a partially playful tone, recognizing the teasing for what it was. 

When Trixie realized that there was someone else in the room, she looked him over and before anyone could stop her, wrapped Moloch in a hug too. “I don’t know you, but if you’re here you must be as good as family so that makes you mine too.” 

Moloch froze for a moment at the attention before he decided the safest thing to do would be to copy the reaction of the others and gingerly wrapped his arms around her, returning the hug and being very /very/ careful not to hurt her. If there was one thing that scared him more than the wrath of his king, it was the wrath of his queen, and this woman was apparently very important to both of them. 

He was very aware of the threat in his king’s gaze and the confounded look in his queen’s. He would be willing to bet that he was more confounded than she was though. This was definitely a first for him. The only physical contact he had ever had with anyone before had been during sex, and this was definitely not that. It made him feel funny. It didn’t last long though before she let him go and stepped away. “Hi. I’m…”

“Beatrice,” Lucifer cut in. 

“Trixie,” she corrected pointedly and stuck her tongue out at Lucifer. 

“Why must you continue going by a hooker’s name, child? What’s wrong with the name your mother gave you?” 

“Because I /like/ Trixie,” she said stubbornly before turning back to Moloch. “And you are…” she prompted the still stunned demon. 

“Moloch,” he managed to say. 

“Moloch is my bodyguard like your aunt Maze is your mother’s,” Lucifer explained. 

To Trixie, bodyguard meant best friend, or at least as close as Lucifer came to those kinds of things so she still didn’t think her greeting was out of line and barely noticed the demon’s discomfort. “Nice to meet you, Moloch.” 

“Okay. Well. How did you get here? What did you do?” Chloe asked, now that the greetings were out of the way. 

“The same as you actually. We even used the same slogan,” Trixie said with a grin. “I figured it was a way to honor you and get here all at once.” 

“At least he didn’t throw you in the pits,” Lucifer muttered. 

“Huh?” Trixie asked. 

“Nothing. Let’s just say my landing wasn’t as nice as yours,” Chloe told her. She wasn’t going to hide it from her forever, but there were other things she wanted to talk about right now. “Your father didn’t stop you?” 

Trixie laughed. “When was the last time you OR Dad managed to stop me from doing anything I had my mind set on?” Chloe nodded in agreement with that statement. “Not that he didn’t try of course. So did Aunt Linda and Amenadiel, and even Charlie when he came to visit. The only reason it took me as long as it did was because Amenadiel agreed to try and talk the old guy into letting me come here, so I gave him a chance, but it didn’t work.”

“Your reaction out there isn’t going to give anyone any ammunition is it?” Chloe asked Lucifer worriedly. 

Maze snorted a laugh. “Oh please. If anything he made her the safest person in hell.” 

“Huh?” Chloe asked, confused. 

“He took on God himself to protect her. While all the demons were scrambling for cover and cowering in corners. And he won. No one will dare touch her after that,” Maze explained. 

“He didn’t exactly win…”

“God left and none of you were hurt. That’s winning in their eyes,” Maze told her.

Lucifer just looked away embarrassed. He was soon trapped in another hug by Trixie, though as she said, “Thank’s Lucifer.” 

“Of course, urchin. You must know by now that I would do anything to protect you,” he told her. 

“I know,” she chirped happily as she let him go and went to sit down, prompting everyone else to do the same. 

Chloe and Lucifer sat next to her on the wide couch while Maze and Moloch took their normal chairs across from them. Moloch kept looking at Trixie strangely, which Lucifer definitely noticed, even if no one else seemed to. He refrained from commenting for the moment though. “I owe you thanks as well, Beatrice,” Lucifer told her. 

“You do?” she asked confused. 

“Yes. Your prayers got me through a rather difficult time,” he told her. 

“Oh. You got those huh?” she blushed brightly. “I wasn’t sure if you would.”

“Yes, I got them. And they never failed to make me feel better,” he told her. 

Moloch snorted a laugh, while Maze did her best not to do the same. “What’s so funny?” Trixie asked. 

“Apparently his definition of feeling better was to fly into a temper at the slightest provocation,” Maze said amusedly. 

“Every demon in hell scrambled to avoid to him for a few days after he got one,” Moloch added. 

Trixie turned to look at Lucifer with a look that demanded explanation. “Yes. Well. It did make me feel like I still mattered. But it also reminded me that I was stuck here away from everyone I mattered to so…” he shrugged sheepishly. 

“A few days after? I prayed every day,” Trixie said, even more confused. 

“Time here works differently than on other planes. A day anywhere else is a month here,” Chloe told her. 

“Oh. I would have prayed more often if I’d known,” Trixie said. 

“I’m glad you didn’t then,” Moloch muttered, causing everyone, except for Lucifer to burst into laughter, and even the devil had an amused glint in his eyes. 

“So if you were getting the prayers, does that mean you had something to do with Greg’s…death?” she asked curiously. 

“You could say that,” Lucifer said evasively, not sure how she would feel about it. 

“He let me do the deed though,” Maze said proudly, not caring. 

“Thank you both,” she said sincerely. She had learned the real details of the abuse from all of her children many years later, so had no guilt over being the cause of his death. 

Lucifer just smiled and nodded. “I wish I could have done more.” 

“You’re welcome to join us on the next hunt next time he gets out though,” Maze offered. 

“I’m not sure if that’s safe,” Chloe disagreed. 

After a brief interlude to explain his punishment, including the hunts which made her giggle, she said, “I’m not sure about joining the hunt. I’d want to think about that and settle in a little more before deciding. But I do want to see him and talk to him at some point.” 

“I can arrange that,” Lucifer promised, and even Chloe nodded. She wouldn’t dream of taking that chance away from her daughter. 

“Why didn’t you ever tell me what he’d done?” Chloe asked the question that had been bothering her for a hundred years. 

“Because I knew how much it would upset you,” she said with a shrug. “I never told Dad either if that helps. The only person who ever knew was Aunt Linda. She was the one who counseled the kids and me afterwards. She didn’t even tell Amenadiel.” 

“Instead I had to hear it from Lucifer while I had the piece of shit sitting right in front of me,” she pointed out. 

Trixie just grinned evilly. “I think I prefer it that way anyway. You got to take your anger out on him.” 

Chloe snorted amusedly. She should have expected that response. “I still should have heard it from you. I could have been there for you…”

“Mom, you were already dead before all that happened and it was long over and dealt with by the time I died and joined you in heaven,” Trixie reasoned. “If you had been there I would have confided in you.” 

“At least she confided in me, dearest,” Lucifer tried to console her. “And I was able to do something to take care of it.” 

“What are we talking about?” Moloch asked confused. He hadn’t been a part of the group when it had initially been discussed, and it wasn’t something that had come up in conversation since then. 

“That’s something for Beatrice to share with you if she ever chooses to,” Lucifer told him before changing the subject. “I have to ask…Why would you choose to come here instead of being with your own children?” That was something that had been baffling him since she’d arrived.


	16. Chapter 16

“Part of it is that I missed all of you. I mean, I got to have a long happy life with my kids, and even Dad lived to a ripe old age, but I lost you too young,” she looked at her mother before turning to look between Lucifer and Maze, “And I lost both of you even younger. If that’s all it was, then I probably would have stayed anyway, but heaven isn’t exactly kind to people like me.”

“People like you?” Lucifer asked dangerously, wondering what new horror his family was unleashing up there. 

Chloe winced. She would never have wanted Lucifer to know this part, but Trixie apparently thought he had a right to. Or at least that he deserved an explanation enough to hear about it. She knew that stopping Trixie now would be the worst possible thing she could do, so she kept quiet as her daughter continued. “People who like you,” she said apologetically. 

“I see…” Lucifer drawled, wiping his face blank. It wasn’t exactly surprising to him. 

Chloe saw his reaction and felt the heartache welling up in her and if she didn’t know better she would think she was feeling his, but she knew that she was just feeling for him. “Lucifer…”

“I’m fine, darling,” he waved her off and that dismissal alone told her that he wasn’t fine, but she knew that he wasn’t going to talk about it here. He had come a long way towards opening up to her over the years, but only to her. “What did they do to you, urchin?” he asked worriedly. 

“Well…Dad was one of the worst. Not towards me of course, he never shunned me the way other people did, but when he got to heaven and found out you were the real Lucifer, he kinda lost it. I know he was really bad to Mom while she was there, and I stopped speaking to him a long time ago because of it, but he was the champion of the whole Lucifer is evil movement.” 

“And why did I not hear about any of this from you, Chloe?” Lucifer asked. 

Chloe just shrugged. “You never asked.” She knew it was weak and judging from the look Lucifer was giving her, he knew it too and she knew they would be having even more of a conversation later. 

“From what I heard, it had always been that way up there, but Dad’s arrival started fanning the flames quite a bit. He never liked you, no matter how many times me and mom and even Aunt Linda and Amenadiel told him he was wrong,” Trixie explained. 

“The doctor and my brother were still on my side?” he asked surprised. 

“Quietly, yeah,” Trixie told him. “Aunt Linda and Dad stopped speaking pretty soon after she got there because of it, but after a while, I think because of pressure from Amenadiel, she stopped defending you so much. She would never agree with anyone about you being evil, but she just stayed out of it. That just made me madder though.”

“You should have forsaken me too, child. I would have understood,” he told her softly. 

“No way,” she shook her head. “I was raised to stand up for what I believe in, no matter what and I believe in you, Lucifer. No one is ever going to convince me otherwise.” She knew that he would have understood, but she also knew that it would have hurt him deeply if he’d ever found out. She’d known that even before his eyes told her when he said that. 

Tears welled up in Lucifer’s eyes at that and he reached across Chloe’s lap and took Trixie’s hand in his and gave it a squeeze in gratitude. He didn’t trust himself to speak right now. “Good for you, kid,” Maze spoke up, echoing the gratitude in Chloe’s eyes and the respect in Moloch’s. 

“Mom never stood by and let them vilify you either,” she added. She wanted to make sure that Lucifer knew that. “She was even more outspoken than I was about it.” 

Moloch could tell that his king wanted to indulge in a moment of weakness and he also knew that his presence was holding him back, so he got up. “I should go get dinner,” he said, heading out to do just that. Thankfully, it was about that time. Maze hesitated a moment but got up to go help him. There would be more to carry for five people after all. 

Once the three of them were alone, Lucifer’s tears weren’t able to be held back any longer as they slowly dripped down his face. Chloe reached up and cupped his cheeks to wipe them away and Trixie got up and moved to the other end of the couch on his other side and cuddled up against him. “Remember that other than Dad, none of those people who hated you ever met you, and Dad is just an idiot. Everyone who knows you loves you, Lucifer.” 

They didn’t love him enough to fight for him he wanted to say, but didn’t. Chloe could see it in his eyes though even as he wrapped his arms around both her and Trixie. “Thank you both. I still wish you could have enjoyed paradise though.”

Trixie scoffed. “Paradise. Right.” She looked at him seriously. “Even without the way they were about you, it was still boring there and the people were so judgemental. I may miss some of the people there, like Aunt Linda and Luc and I’ll miss seeing my other kids when they get there, but I won’t miss the place at all.” Chloe smiled at the reminder of her grandson and who he was named after. She was sure that was at least part of Dan’s issue too. Greg had refused to let her name their son Lucifer, but they had compromised on Lucas, but she and Trixie had both always called him Luc for short instead of Luke. 

Lucifer also smiled at the reminder, though a little more sadly than Chloe. He had a lot weighing on him at the moment. He remembered the prayer that had come through after Lucas had been born and how she had gone on and on about the argument she’d had with her husband over the name. In that one instance he was rather glad that her husband had won, though the thought touched him more than she would ever know. A child in that world saddled with the name Lucifer would not have been treated well. He knew that much from experience. He had overcome it by not caring, but a child wouldn’t have had that luxury. 

“It wasn’t just the two of us against the world either, Lucifer,” Chloe assured him. She wanted him to know that there were other people fighting for him too. “Ella and Father Frank were also on our side. So were a lot of other people that had known you on earth. A lot of the older souls who were apparently there before you became as much of a villain were easily talked around too.” 

“And it wasn’t like it was a constant fight either. It was just arguments that sprung up from time to time,” Trixie told him. “Those of us who were the most outspoken were just shunned by most of the rest. Father Frank was really nice and he didn’t really care much and no one can hate Aunt Ella much. She’s just too nice to everyone, even when they disagree, so Mom and I ended up with brunt of it. Probably because we also love you the most.” 

Lucifer turned and pressed a kiss to the top of her head before doing the same for Chloe. “Thank you, both. I’m okay though.” He mostly meant it this time even. Hearing that Linda and Amenadiel wouldn’t fight for him had hurt, but he couldn’t really blame them. Amenadiel was under more scrutiny being an angel and having such close contact with their father, and Linda probably was too as the mother of his son. “I’ve always known that heaven hated me. That’s not a surprise,” he pointed out. Hearing that other people who knew him actually cared was though. 

Chloe he knew loved him, even if he never would have imagined how much before she got here. Trixie was a bit of a surprise. He had only known her for a few years when she was just a child and he hadn’t thought they’d been particularly close, but given the constant prayers he’d gotten from her, that hadn’t really blindsided him that much either. Ella he would have figured for running for the hills as soon as she realized who he really was given how religious she had been, and Father Frank had always confused him. He wondered who else had been on his side, but it hardly mattered. The fact that people that he hadn’t known so well still believed in him in the face of so much opposition was what counted.


	17. Chapter 17

Maze and Moloch returned soon enough with the food and they took theirs to their own rooms after leaving the rest. Lucifer turned to Chloe once everything was settled and asked, “It seems we are back to the question of why you never told me any of this?” 

“If you had asked I would have,” she told him. “But I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Instead you just hid important information from me?” he asked pointedly. 

“How was it important? Why would you need to know that you were being vilified in heaven?” Chloe answered with a question. 

“My being vilified isn’t anything new, darling. Heaven and earth have been doing it for millennia,” he told her. 

“I know, but…Amenadiel and Linda keeping quiet…Dan leading the charge…” Chloe shrugged. She couldn’t even bring herself to mention Charlie. Unfortunately, Trixie was a lot more forthcoming. 

“Charlie believing the lies,” she added. 

A pained look washed over Lucifer’s face. “He does?” he asked, trying not to seem affected. 

Trixie sighed. She didn’t want to hurt him any more than her mom did, but she had a different opinion of what he had a right to know. “When he was little, he was always back and forth to heaven, so Amenadiel forbade anyone from mentioning you since he was worried about what Charlie might say to the wrong people. It made sense, as much as we hated it, so we went along with it. By the time he was a teenager though, that excuse wasn’t holding water anymore, so most of us started balking about it.”

“Amenadiel was still adamant though, and before we even had a chance to go against him, we found out that he had learned quite a bit about you from heaven. I went off on Amenadiel over it, but he said that you were in hell and weren’t coming back so there was no reason to put Charlie against his family for your sake,” Chloe explained. 

“Mom hit him for that one. Not that it did much good,” Trixie explained. “Linda left him not long after that too. She kept trying to tell Charlie the truth about you, but he never believed her.” 

“That explains a lot,” Lucifer said with a shrug that wasn’t nearly as casual as he tried to make it seem. 

“What do you mean?” Chloe asked. 

“Did you know that this place is completely open to celestials?” he asked her. 

She gasped. “I hope you’re not saying what I think you’re saying.” 

“I’m saying that he could have come and gone as he pleased. He could have come to visit me at any time. Even just a few minutes to say, ‘Hey bro. How are you? We haven’t forgotten about you. We still care.’ Due to the time difference, nearly no time would have passed while he did, but I never got a single visit. He could have brought my nephew down to see me. He could have given me a chance to be in his life, even in some small way. Since he’s half celestial he could have come and gone as he pleased too.”

“He could have brought Mom and me here anytime he wanted to, couldn’t he?” Trixie asked, setting her jaw in anger. 

“Yes, he could have,” Lucifer told her. 

“Maybe he just thought you wouldn’t want him to?” Chloe knew she was grasping at straws, but she would do anything to take the pain from his eyes. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t have wanted him to, but I would have wanted you in my father’s line of fire even less. Once he realized how determined you were and how far you were willing to go, it would have been much better for him to just sneak you out first, and he knew I would have understood that,” Lucifer told them. 

“That…that’s just…he…ugh,” Trixie was so overcome by anger that words failed her. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Lucifer said matter-of-factly. “Amenadiel has turned on me so many times that it never surprises me anymore.” 

“That doesn’t make it right,” Chloe said sadly, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. “You have to know that.”

“Mom’s right. You don’t deserve that,” Trixie told him, hugging him from the other side. 

“It’s the way of things,” Lucifer said with a shrug, tightening his arms around both of them for a few minutes before getting up and going to the piano. He had easily fallen back into the habit of playing when he was upset and they both let him. 

Trixie let her mother pull her to her side and hold her in Lucifer’s stead, and sighed sadly as she watched him. “I didn’t want to hurt him either, Mom. You know that right?”

“I know, Monkey,” Chloe said morosely. “I know that I should have told him a long time ago.”

“He had a right to know,” she pointed out. “And there was good there too. All the other people who believed in him even if they didn’t know him as well.” Chloe nodded and Trixie decided to add something. “He seems happier here anyway, doesn’t he? Is that weird?” 

“What do you mean?” Chloe asked her.

“Well, I was just a kid, so I may be wrong, but he always seemed to have this underlying…I don’t know…sadness? Weariness? Something?”

“No, you’re right. I hadn’t really considered it, but along with all the good things he had on earth, there was bad that came with it too. He was faced every day with the fact that he was blamed for every bad thing in the universe. No one ever saw him for who he was. He just…he just wanted to be his own person and to be loved for who he really was, but no one did.”

“I did,” Trixie told her. “I saw who he really was. No matter how much you didn’t believe him, I did. I knew he never lied so if he said he was the devil then he was.”

“And I think that’s why he became so attached to you. Some part of him realized that,” Chloe told her. 

“He didn’t seem that attached,” Trixie chuckled. 

Chloe laughed softly, not wanting to disturb Lucifer’s playing. “How many other children were allowed to touch him at all? How many other children did he willingly spend time with?”

“That was just because he loved you,” Trixie pointed out.

“That was part of it, sure, but he always knew when you were home and he could have avoided the house when you were there. He didn’t have to participate in game night and let you paint his face. You probably didn’t notice how…happy and free, he was then. I kept having to stop him from buying you expensive gifts every time you said you wanted something. He tried to teach you to drive when you were eight just because you wanted to,” Chloe pointed out. 

“Oh. I didn’t really think of all that,” Trixie said, looking at Lucifer with a smile. 

“You were a child. It’s not surprising that you didn’t notice,” Chloe assured her. 

“When I was praying to him, I was worried that even if he was getting them that I was bothering him. That he wouldn’t want to hear from me. I convinced myself that he wasn’t getting them anyway and talking to him was just making me feel better, so I kept going,” Trixie admitted. “I never realized it would have meant so much to him.”

“Well it did. Especially with his brother abandoning him. It gave him a lifeline. I just wish you had told me what you were doing so I could have done it too.”

“At first, I didn’t want to make you cry again. You always cried anytime someone even mentioned Lucifer.”

“Did you tell him that?” Chloe asked, not sure if she wanted him to know or not. 

“Of course, I did. I also told him how you stole all his shirts from the penthouse and every time we stayed the night there because you wanted to feel close to him. I especially told him when you started buying the cologne and hair products he used. I thought it was funny. I didn’t really get it at the time though.” 

“Of course, you didn’t. You were just a kid,” Chloe said, blushing brightly. She could tell from the twitching of Lucifer’s lips that he could hear every word they said and found it amusing, but he was still giving them the illusion of privacy by not saying anything. “Why didn’t you tell me later then? When I was a little more put together.” She got back to the main focus of the conversation. 

“Honestly, I just didn’t think about it. By then it was just a habit. I assumed you were doing it too,” she said with a shrug. 

“I hadn’t even considered the possibility,” Chloe told her. “To me prayer was something addressed to God. I never considered the idea of praying to angels.” 

“Like I said, I wasn’t sure if he was getting them or if it was even possible, but it just made me feel closer to him. You did the same thing though. You found other ways to feel close to him like wearing his shirts and smelling like him,” Trixie pointed out. 

“Yes, but my ways didn’t let him know I was thinking about him,” Chloe said sadly. 

“He knew, Mom,” Trixie assured her, and Chloe couldn’t help but smile. Her daughter really had saved them both in more ways than she knew.


	18. Chapter 18

It didn’t take long before Trixie was yawning. “Sorry. Time is different up there and I was about to head to bed when I got dragged out.” 

Lucifer stopped playing and looked at her. “Why didn’t you say something, child?” 

“Because I missed you guys and wanted to talk,” she said as though it should be obvious. 

“Well let me just make you a room then,” Lucifer said and started to turn his attention to the task before he was stopped. 

“Can’t I just sleep out here and listen to you play for a while?” she asked hopefully. 

“No. Definitely not,” Lucifer said. When she looked at him questioningly, he explained. “Any demon can walk in here at any time. It’s not safe.” 

“He’s right, Monkey. They aren’t supposed to unless it’s an emergency, but that doesn’t mean they can’t,” Chloe agreed with him. 

“So what? They’ve been ordered not to hurt me anyway,” she pointed out, which prompted Lucifer to repeat his t-bone in front of a dog analogy and Trixie huffed. “So where am I going to sleep that’s safe enough then?” 

“Through here,” Lucifer said, leading her to their room and making a quick door off of it into her room. 

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“I suppose we could put you off Maze’s room if you’d rather, but she tends to have a far more…adventurous…sex life than we do,” Lucifer told her. 

“And what if /I/ want to have a sex life?” she asked, not particularly bothered by what her mother and Lucifer might be doing. “You really expect me to parade them through /your/ room?”

Chloe bit her lip, but decided to let Lucifer handle this one. She hadn’t considered that aspect of her daughter living here. She knew that Lucifer hadn’t either, but on first reaction, she still had the tendency to be a bit of a prude, so she knew that she would probably stick her foot in it. 

“You are a grown woman, Beatrice. We have no intention of telling you with who, how many, or how often, you can share your bed. You must understand, however, that a demon’s idea of consent is far different than the human understanding of such. Anyone you invite to your bed will be free to pass without comment, but the only protection you have here is us and we can’t and won’t just throw you to the wolves.”

Trixie groaned in frustration. She could see his point, but that didn’t mean she had to agree. She was too tired to formulate a valid argument though. “I’m too tired to argue tonight, but we’ll talk about this again tomorrow,” she said wearily, hugging them both tightly before going to her, hopefully temporary, room. 

Chloe sighed as the door closed behind her. “We’re going to have a lot to explain to her tomorrow about how she needs to conduct herself here.”

“I know, darling, but it won’t be quite as bad as for you though,” Lucifer told her. 

“How so?” Chloe asked. 

“They don’t have to respect her and obey her as much, so she has a bit more freedom. She still shouldn’t show too much weakness lest she make herself a target, but she won’t be wandering alone either way. She doesn’t have to command their respect and as long as we remain strong in the eyes of the demon’s the threat of us should keep her relatively safe with those precautions,” he explained. 

“I want Maze to be her bodyguard,” Chloe told him. 

“I know. I was thinking the same,” Lucifer told her. “I will transfer Moloch to your service and cultivate a new guard for myself. I think we can get away with sharing Moloch for the most part though. Only when we split up would I need to use the new guard.”

“Why don’t I just get a new guard instead of shuffling everyone around?” 

“Because, dearest, I am still more resilient than you should anything go wrong. I can fight them on any level, but you only have your ability to command them to rely on. After Maze, I trust Moloch more than any other with your safety.” 

“Then why do you need a bodyguard at all? And I thought you said we couldn’t use the same bodyguard?” 

“In answer to your first question, part of it is that it’s just the way it’s done, but there is also the factor that I can’t both attend to my duties and remain vigilant for any potential threats at the same time. When you first arrived, I wasn’t comfortable with us sharing a bodyguard because I had no way of knowing how the demons would react to you or to us together. I wanted someone who could be focused on you and only you. Now they are used to it and we have weeded out enough potential problems in the last hundred years for me to feel more comfortable with the idea,” he explained. 

Chloe nodded. That made a lot of sense, and she probably would have figured it out herself if she’d bothered to try. “Okay, so about Trixie sleeping through there. The only way in and out of her room is through here right?” 

“Of course,” Lucifer told her. “It would be rather pointless otherwise if there were other ways in.”

“How can we keep her from walking in on us when we’re naked or…occupied?” Chloe asked with a slight blush. 

“Would it truly be so horrible if she did? She isn’t a child anymore and surely she is aware that we have sex. I’m sure she will announce herself before coming in if she’s concerned about it.” It had been a while since Chloe had been concerned about people walking in on them. Both Maze and Moloch had done so many times over the years, so he wasn’t worried about her concern. 

Chloe blushed again, but got his point. Yes the fact that Trixie was her daughter was different, but it still shouldn’t be a big deal. “Yeah. Okay. You’re right,” she told him. 

“Aren’t I always?” he teased, pulling her in for a kiss that quickly turned into more and it was a few hours before they finally fell asleep sated. 

The next morning, Lucifer was up first and he was rummaging in his closet for some clothes when the door to Trixie’s room opened. Trixie’s jaw dropped as she got a good look at Lucifer in the buff. She’d be lying if she said she’d never wondered. She’d obviously had a crush on him as a kid, and she would never admit to her mother that she’d had more than a few fantasies, even as an adult, not that she would ever act on them. She definitely wasn’t complaining about the free show though. Maybe having her room connected to theirs did have it’s advantages. 

Lucifer wasn’t the slightest bit shy about her staring. He never was. He knew he was attractive and saw no reason to hide it, so he didn’t rush to cover himself at her appearance, but continued dressing at his normal pace. He wasn’t able to stop a chuckle from escaping though, which made her blush brightly and look away before continuing on her way out of the room. “Hang on a moment, urchin,” Lucifer called and she looked back at him as he started buttoning his shirt. “Make sure Maze is out there before you go out. If she’s not, wait for me,” he told her.

Trixie nodded and looked out the door, before telling him, “She’s here,” and heading out.

As he finished buttoning his shirt, he noticed Chloe’s eyes open and looking at him, but he couldn’t quite place the look on her face. “Is everything alright, love?” he asked her. 

“Did you see the way she looked at you?” Chloe asked, not upset exactly, but more uncomfortable than anything else. 

“Obviously. It’s the same way anyone with a pulse looks at me,” he chuckled, not understanding the problem. 

“You’re right. I’m just being silly,” Chloe shook her head at herself. 

Lucifer went over and sat on the bed next to her. “Don’t do that, darling. If something is bothering you, talk to me about it. Don’t just brush it off.”

“It really is silly, love,” she said taking his hand and pulling him down for a kiss. “It’s just a mom thing. I know she’s an adult, but it’s hard for me to see her that way. It’s going to take time for me to get used to the idea that she’s…you know.”

“She was married and had children while you were still in her life. You spent a long time with her in heaven before you came here,” he pointed out confused. 

“I know, but that didn’t mean I saw any blatant signs of sexual attraction from her. I mean, obviously she had sex since she had kids, but it wasn’t something that was in my face, you know? And then there’s the fact that it’s you she was looking at like that…”

“Would you rather I attempt to hide from her in those situations?” he asked, perfectly willing to do so if it would make Chloe happy. 

“No, it’s fine. It doesn’t really matter,” she told him. Hiding himself away wasn’t really him. She loved that he was so open with his sexuality most of the time and she didn’t want him to start second guessing himself. Especially now that she was finally starting to loosen up a little more. Just because Trixie was her daughter and Lucifer was her husband didn’t mean that there was anything wrong with a little looking. As long as that’s all there was. “It just caught me off guard is all,” she told him honestly.


	19. Chapter 19

By the time Lucifer and Chloe headed out, breakfast was already underway, and thankfully Trixie’s embarrassment from before seemed to have vanished because she was laughing and joking with all of them like usual. Trixie wanted to get out and see the sights, few though there were, but Lucifer wouldn’t let her yet. First she needed to understand the way of things, so most of the morning was spent explaining how things worked. Everyone participated in that conversation, even Maze and Moloch, since they all had different things they thought she should be aware of. 

The afternoon was spent with Chloe and Lucifer showing Trixie around with her on Lucifer’s other arm. Maze and Moloch of course, followed behind them watching for threats. Trixie might have preferred the opportunity to explore on her own, or at least with just Maze, but Lucifer wanted to reinforce the fact that she was under his protection at least a little bit more before letting her roam freely. Even if it did mean getting a day behind on their work. 

By the end of the day Trixie had come to the conclusion that life here would be no worse than in heaven, and better in some ways. She still couldn’t relax and be herself in public, but it would be easier to put on the mask of strength and disinterest than it would be of being happy and loving all the time like she’d had to be in heaven. She also had her mom and Lucifer here they would love and support her no matter what, unlike most of the idiots in heaven. Up there, only Ella had fallen into that role. Even Aunt Linda kept trying to get her to tone things down. Maze would obviously love and support her too and she was still getting to know Moloch, but from what she could tell so far, he would become a good friend also. Then there was the fact that her mom and Lucifer were actually in charge here. She wouldn’t have to worry about being shunned. Feared, yes, but not shunned. No one would dare. 

There were still the bad points, of course. The bad food, oppressive heat, lack of emotions outside their home, the constant displays of violence, the echoes of screams in the distance, and so on, but those things could be dealt with. She could get used to the food. They had a pool to help with the heat. She could get plenty of feelings at home, so she wouldn’t miss them so much elsewhere. She could ignore the violence and learn to tune out the screams. The good parts made up for the bad, and she could see herself being happy here. Nowhere was perfect after all. Earth certainly wasn’t, though of the three places she’d lived it was still her favorite. It just wasn’t an option anymore. 

The next day they were back to normal. Trixie let the bedroom thing go for now deciding to just deal with it where it was unless it became a problem. Lucifer and Chloe went to the office for the morning and spent the afternoon in the throne room. Since their last session there a few days ago was interrupted, they thought it best to go again, and it turned out to be a good idea because there were a few questions about Trixie and how she fit into the order of things. 

While Lucifer and Chloe were occupied, Trixie spent part of the morning lounging around with Maze, going through Lucifer’s library before she headed out to explore. She had lunch out and didn’t get back to their rooms until dinnertime, meeting up with Lucifer and Chloe again then. They talked about their days over dinner, and Lucifer couldn’t help but wince when Trixie mentioned checking out the cells. He wouldn’t have wanted her to see that, but then there wasn’t much here that he would want her to see and he knew that he couldn’t keep her locked in her room all the time, so he would just have to learn to deal. They all had things they were going to have to get used to. Lucifer did promise to take her to see Greg the next afternoon though. 

That was an amusing meeting for everyone but Greg. Lucifer himself was impressed at the depths of Trixie’s venom towards her ex-husband and the threats that she came up with, he immediately made mental notes to include in his torture. Moloch actually cracked at smile at some of her ideas and was looking at her with almost as much respect as he did Lucifer and Chloe. On the way back, Trixie grinned at Lucifer. “Now that was fun.”

Lucifer chuckled. One must find amusement where one can in hell. “I’m glad it helped you, child,” he told her. 

“Perhaps liberating or cleansing might be a better word than fun?” Chloe suggested hopefully, not wanting her daughter to start to enjoy torture too much. 

“It was that too, but do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do that?” 

“I can only imagine,” Chloe nodded in acceptance. She had been able to vent on him as soon as she found out. She could understand taking more enjoyment of it after having to wait so long. 

“Aun-Mazikeen said she would start training me again tomorrow,” Trixie told them, almost forgetting that ‘Auntie Maze’ was to be used in private only. It wouldn’t do for any random demon to overhear the emotional title. 

“At home, I hope?” Chloe asked, glancing back at Maze. She didn’t want Trixie anywhere near the demonic sparring sessions. 

“For now, yes. If she gets to a point where she can hold her own with the demons, it would do them good to see her fight,” Maze told her. 

“Is that possible?” Chloe asked curiously. “For her to be able to hold her own against demons?” 

“It won’t be easy,” Lucifer answered instead. “But with the right tools, it will be possible. And they will respect her even more for overcoming her ‘disabilities’ to do so.”

“Right tools?” Trixie was the one to ask this time. 

“You’ll never be as strong as them, so you’ll have to rely on other things to even the score. We can have gloves and wristbands lined with hell-forged spikes or studs so that your punches are able to do damage. Your armor will need to be stronger. You can be just as fast as them which will help, though it won’t be easy to hone those reflexes to that degree. Mazikeen can also teach you tips to maximize the strengths you do have. She is my number one for a reason.”

“As long as you all remember that I’m not exactly helpless otherwise,” Trixie pointed out. “I might not be up to a demon level yet, but I did take up martial arts after you and Mazikeen left us and never quit. I have a black belt in four different disciplines. I’m a little rusty since that kind of thing is frowned upon in heaven and the last few years of my life I wasn’t exactly in fighting shape, but I’m not starting from scratch either.” She was very glad that death returned a body to it’s healthiest point, so she wasn’t the old infirm lady that she was at the end of her life. 

“I know, urchin,” Lucifer said with a smile. “Mazikeen was proud of you when I told her that, and so was I of course. Just know that you still have a long way to go.” He turned to look at Maze. “Go ahead and start on getting her the items I mentioned and anything else you think may prove useful to even the odds.” 

“Of course, my lord,” Maze agreed easily. 

As they got back to their rooms, Trixie plopped down on the couch as Maze headed out to start requisitioning the things Trixie would need. After making her promise not to leave the rooms, of course. “Just out of curiosity, hasn’t anyone ever thought to come up with some sort of vehicle system here? This is a lot of walking.”

Chloe laughed, remembering when she’d said the same, and Lucifer’s response to Trixie was the same as it had been to her. “Well the demons used to insist on carrying me around in a little throne over their heads, but that got very old very fast. I much prefer walking.”

Trixie snorted. “Yeah. I bet.” She shook her head imagining the three of them being carried around like that was more than a little amusing. “That’s the only other option?” 

“Well there are the carts that you’ve seen hauling supplies, but we don’t have beasts of burden so they would still be pulled by demons,” Lucifer told her. 

“And there aren’t the type of supplies available here to make any kind of engines, so yeah. That’s it,” Chloe added. 

“Ugh. Walking it is then,” Trixie said. 

“If your training with Mazikeen is anything like the rest of ours, you will be begging to walk soon enough,” Moloch told her amusedly.


	20. Chapter 20

She completely understood what Moloch meant over the next few days as Trixie spent most of every morning running circles around the living area. Between the seating, the dining area, the piano, the pool, and the library that had been moved from the bedroom, one lap was about a quarter mile and Trixie was running forty laps a day. Maze had been nice enough to start her with ten the first day though and add ten more every day after. She had promised they would stick with forty for a while, thankfully, because Trixie wondered if she was going to die. Maze told her more than once that she didn’t have to do it if she didn’t want to, but every time she said that, Trixie just got more and more determined to prove that she could keep up. It had been a theme of her whole life, really. 

Her determination didn’t keep her from being exhausted and in pain though. More than once over the course of the first week both Chloe and Lucifer looked like they wanted to object, but she stopped them before they could. At the end of the first week, just as they quit in time for dinner, the five of them sat down around the table, and Maze said, “Your armor and toys will be ready in the morning.” 

Trixie grinned. “Good.” She was covered in bruises from head to toe, more than a few shallow cuts that would have been worse if Maze hadn’t been pulling her blows, and every muscle in her body felt like it was on fire, but she still grinned. 

“Hopefully things will be easier on you then,” Chloe said with undisguised irritation directed towards Maze. 

Maze just smirked. “They will be. I pushed her to her limits this week to see how determined she was and how much work she intended to put into this.”

When Chloe started to bristle, Lucifer just laid a hand on her arm to calm her. “It’s perfectly understandable and will help in the long run,” he told her gently. 

Chloe sighed and nodded when the look from her daughter added to the mix, and Maze continued speaking. “The next few days will mostly be spent getting used to your new gear,” she told Trixie. “Once your reflexes and hand to hand is a little better, we’ll start on weapons. I know you kept up with the knife throwing and shuriken, so we’ll start there and then move on to longer blades, spears, staves and so on.”

“When will I be able to get out of here for the training?” Trixie asked. 

“You can start running outside once you’re good with your gear. I want you at least up to par with the knives before you start sparring with anyone else though,” Maze told her looking to Lucifer and Chloe for approval and they both nodded, Chloe much more reluctantly, but she didn’t think she would ever be comfortable with her daughter fighting demons. Lucifer wasn’t ecstatic about the idea, but trusted Maze to keep things under control and he didn’t want to have to limit Trixie’s life any more than he had to. 

It only took a few days for Trixie to have full control with all her gear. Her gloves ended up going to her elbow and were dual purpose. There was a lever inside that she could hit to fold the spikes into studs for training. The fact that they were hell-forged metals would give her punches about the same impact as the strength of a demon. Her armor was also lined with the same metal, which made it heavier, and it had taken a while for the smiths to strike the right balance between weight and protection so that it wouldn’t slow her down, but still take the blows. Her shoes had the same functionality as the gloves and the lever could be activated with her toes instead of her fingers. That way if she ever needed to protect herself for real, she could be as deadly as she needed to be without having to change gear. 

After that, she and Maze could often be spotted running through the streets together, though Trixie refused to use the headpiece unless she was actually sparring. Instead it was hanging on her belt. She was getting a lot of attention from the demons on both ends of the spectrum. Some of them thought that her reliance on armor was a weakness, but most of them knew that she was human and thought that the fact that she was trying to keep up with them at all was a sign of strength. 

Trixie had been spending more and more time talking with Moloch when all of them were in the rooms and he wasn’t off with Lucifer and Chloe, and about three weeks after she arrived was the first test of the practicality of having her room off theirs. Lucifer and Chloe were in their rooms getting ready for bed when Trixie came in, pulling Moloch by the hand towards her room. “M-my lord, my l-lady,” Moloch stuttered as he bowed nervously. He didn’t often address them that way or bow in private which just highlighted how nearly terrified he was of their reactions to the situation. 

Trixie was giving them a look as if daring them to say anything. Chloe was speechless, but Lucifer just nodded at Moloch in greeting, which gave him the courage to continue following Trixie towards her room. Once the door was closed behind them, Chloe whispered to Lucifer. “She’ll be okay?” 

Lucifer just pulled her close and smiled encouragingly. “It’s her choice, darling, and Moloch knows better than most what will happen to him if he hurts her.” 

“Do you think we should let Moloch start guarding her instead of Maze?” she asked. 

“No. Not yet at least. I doubt they are serious and Maze is still best to train her. If they end up getting serious we can consider making changes then,” Lucifer told her. 

That never ended up happening, and Lucifer never expected it to. Moloch, like most demons, wasn’t really capable of emotions. He was devoted to her yes, but there wasn’t the depth to the emotion that it would take to form a serious loving relationship. He was the most frequent visitor to her bed though far from the only one. Only the bravest of demons would face Lucifer to get to her though, but she was fine with that. She didn’t want to waste time with the cowards anyway. 

Trixie had joined the demons in sparring about two months after she arrived, and while she was far from the best, she was far from the worst too. She was about middle of the road. It had taken some time and Lucifer’s presence to modify his orders before anyone other than Maze would even spar with her though. In the first few years, she only had to seriously protect herself once, and Maze was left to explain later that she would have stepped in if it had been needed, but wanted to let Trixie handle it herself. That didn’t save the attacker from the ultimate punishment, of course, but it got Maze out of hot water. 

Lucifer and Chloe soon got used to having demons coming in and out of her room and after she had been there for a decade, Lucifer even caved and moved the door to her room into the living area. Between Maze’s assurances and his own observance of her sparring, and a few tests that he wasn’t about to tell Chloe about unless directly asked, he was sure that she could protect herself from anything but a mob attack. At least long enough for help to get to her. It was Chloe’s idea to put in some sort of warning system that she could hit that would alert the rest of the house that she was in trouble and after a bit of trial and error, Lucifer had come up with something that would work. 

After the first hundred years that Trixie was there, boredom had her start helping out in the office, and a third person made the paperwork go even faster. She had managed to make a lot of friends among the demons. At least as far as demons could process the concept of friendship, but most of her free time was still spent with her mom, Lucifer, Maze, and Moloch. 

The first time Moloch had accidentally hurt her during sex he had been such a terrified wreck that Trixie had no choice but to wake up Lucifer to ‘absolve’ him, which he did after a few questions to make sure that the rough play was fully consensual and that it was really an accident and not just him losing control. Much to Trixie’s irritation, he did warn Moloch to be more careful in the future though. It took a week for Trixie’s shoulder to heal, but longer than that before Moloch relaxed completely. They eventually managed to settle in comfortably and all find the happiness that they had been looking for. At least as close as they could get in hell.


End file.
